The Danger Room
Logan caught her before she could enter the Danger Room for her evaluation the next morning. Her temper had cooled considerably by then and she was willing to listen to him. She was still angry with Scott for agreeing with Logan but she was strangely less angry with Logan than with Scott.
"I'm sorry, darlin'." he apologized. "I don't have the right ta tell ya how ta run yer business. The only excuse I can give ya is that I was afraid fer Mari."
"Yeah, well," she said, embarrassed, "Scott read me the riot act, too. He agrees with you."
"Scooter yelled at ya?" he growled. Summers had no right to yell at his woman.
"He didn't exactly yell." Jubilee fidgeted, a habit she had when she was embarrassed about something. Some things never change. "He did that thing he does when he's disappointed in you. You know, Wolvie. He makes you feel about six inches tall."
"Well, since I don't try ta please him, he don't pull that on me."
"Yeah." she agreed. "I guess it wouldn't work very well on you. You don't care what people think about you."
"Only you, darlin'." he said, his eyes boring into hers.
"Wolvie?" she asked, looking into his eyes. Something was there that had been absent twelve years before but she could not place exactly what that something was.
"Why don't ya call me Logan anymore?" he asked her in a gravely voice.
"We're not lovers anymore." she told him. "It doesn't seem right to call you by your name now."
He continued to look at her, not saying anything. She could not look away. She was like a deer caught in the headlights. Unconsciously, she took a step closer to him. Then another. And another, until she was standing close enough to him to touch.
His hand came up and cupped her face. "I missed ya so much." he whispered.
"I missed you, too." she replied softly, her heart aching. He stepped closer to her, deliberately inside her personal space, and she relished the feel, treasured the feel of his closeness. It had been far too long since the last time they had touched.
His fingers gently pulled her toward him, his mouth descending. She jerked back as her mind caught on to what he was doing.
"No, Wolvie." she said firmly, stepping back from his embrace. She could not let him kiss her. If she did, she would never be able to stop. "I'm not falling for that again."
His hand dropped to his side as he stepped back.
"Alright, darlin'." he said. "I'll wait. Just get used to the fact that I ain't ready ta give up on us."
"There is no 'us', Wolvie. There's you and Jean. I was just a distraction."
The door to the Danger Room opened with a groan as she keyed in her code.
"I have to go." she said.
He let her leave, turning instead toward the control room. He pushed open the door and scanned the room silently for an empty chair. He wanted to see if she was as strong as Emma had predicted. At thirty, she should be at full power now.
"Morning, Logan." Scott said from his seat at the control panel. "I didn't think you'd make it. You had a very late night."
He grunted and took a seat at the back-up panel, not saying a ward. He was still angry that Scott had dared to scold his woman.
"Okay, Jubilee." Scott said over the intercom. "The objective is to protect the innocents. This is not a slash and burn. Try not to kill anyone but don't let your innocent get hurt."
"Where's the innocent?" she asked.
"You'll have to figure that out for yourself." he told her. "Rogue will be in the safe zone so if you get into trouble, she'll pull you out."
"Hey, sugah." Rogue waved from the corner of the room.
Jubilee nodded at her in acknowledgment. "Okay. So I have to figure out who's the victim and protect him or her." she stated. "Can I hurt the others?"
"Hurt but not kill." Scott told her.
"Gotcha." She pulled her mask down and fluffed her hair over the band.
"Is that fair?" Logan asked after Scott flipped off the intercom. "I can smell who's the target and Emma can pull it from their minds but how is Jubes gonna figure it out?"
"You don't give her enough credit, Logan." Scott said as he made an adjustment to the program. "Her latent telepathy gives her a way of discovering who is the innocent and who's not. All she needs to do is open her mind."
"Did ya tell her that?" Logan demanded. "She ain't trained with us fer a long time. She doesn't know about the new programs."
"She's going to find out." Scott said. "Don't worry, Logan. The safeties are on and Rogue is in with her."
"She gets hurt, bub, and yer gonna pay."
Scott smirked as he glanced over at the older man. "Begin test." he announced over the intercom.
The Danger Room lights dimmed and shadows grew as the room transformed from an empty space to a rough street that could be in any city in the country. Jubilee immediately melted into the shadows and looked around.
She needed to find the innocent victim and avoid the aggressors. She saw a cluster of three men talking on a street corner. She did not think they could be the victim. She marked their faces in her mind and moved.
A fire escape ladder blocked her progress. She shrugged her shoulders and reached up for the ladder. Using her strength and training, she pulled herself up and began to climb the fire escape.
She thought about what Scott wanted her to do as she climbed. She needed to find the one innocent person in the room. If she just had Wolvie's nose, it would not be very difficult but she was a numb nose in comparison. She needed to do something else.
Suddenly, she felt a pressure on her head that made her flinch. Just as she moved her head, a bullet whizzed past.
'That's it!' she thought as she flipped up to the roof and ran, her heart pounding. It had been too many years since she had been shot at and her mind was in a panic.
She quickly jumped from roof to roof, keeping the air conditioner units between her and the gunmen. She needed to find a safe place where she could concentrate.
She threw herself down on a roof and peered over the edge. A window was just below her. Lowering herself over the side, her feet just touched the sill of the window. She released one hand and grabbed the casement. The other hand left the edge and slid open the glass as she slipped into the apartment.
She looked around and found herself alone in the shabby room. She moved to a corner, cleared her mind and willed her racing heart to slow. With a delicate touch, she let her mind expand. One person; alone and frightened.
"Where are you?" she murmured aloud. "I know you're out there."
It took her five minutes and gave her a blinding headache but she found him. Male and young. Possibly just a kid. He was six buildings north and very close to a group of men who had murder on their minds.
Scott and Logan watched as she made her way across the roofs to the building marked in her mind.
"She's found the victim." Scott told the older man. "Spike on the psi energy readings." He marked the paper graph rolling out of the printer. "Looks empathic." he remarked to Logan.
A rustle of paper and fabric announced the arrival of Henry McCoy. "Sorry I'm late." he apologized breathlessly. "I lost track of time."
"At 6:00 in the morning?" Scott teased. He knew Hank McCoy frequently became so involved in his experiments that he forgot to eat and bathe. This time, it looked as if he also forgot to sleep. His clothing was heavily wrinkled and his fur had large mats in several places. It looked as if he had not combed it for several days.
"Blue," Logan said without turning from the window, "I don't mind that ya get caught up in yer work; ya do a lot of good, but ya could at least take a shower once in a while."
Beast scowled at the smaller man but did not reply as he seated himself before the graph printer. He adjusted his glasses and looked over the recording.
"Empathy?" he remarked. "This is a surprise. I don't see a graph on her pyrotechnic output."
"That's coming up." Scott told him as he adjusted the panel.
Two of the men broke from the others and moved toward the back of the building to intercept Jubilee and the victim.
Jubilee was impressed. The new programs were considerably more sophisticated than the ones she had been trained with. The boy she had been sent in to rescue was displaying emotions that were appropriate for the situation and behaving exactly as if he were real. He refused to come out of the closet he had been hiding in. It took her several minutes to convince him that she was there to rescue him and even longer to get him to stop whimpering in fear. The strangest thing was she was able to read his emotions like she was able to read Mari's. It was a little unnerving.He was a hologram, not a human.
She was finally able to calm him enough to get him moving in the right direction to get him out of the building and to safety but when they exited the rear door, they were confronted by two of the aggressors. She quickly paffed the men in the face, grabbed the shrieking boy by the collar and ran.
She ducked down the third alley she came to, dragging the boy behind her. A large dumpster provided some cover but the alley was a dead end. They could not stay. They would be trapped.
The boy's whimpering finally got on her nerves and she snapped. "If you don't shut up, I'm going to leave you here." she snarled.
The boy quieted. All she could hear was his rapid, frightened breathing as she took stock of her situation. They were hiding in an alley that only had one exit and that exit would put them in the path of danger. Looking up, she found tall brick walls. There was no fire escape or windows on any of the walls. It was possible she could climb one but she did not think the boy could.
She eased open the dumpster and looked in. Not too full but it smelled foul.
"Get in." she whispered to him.
"What?" he whispered back. "That thing stinks. I'm not getting in there!"
"It's either get in or get shot." Jubilee informed him. "Which will it be?"
The kid scowled at her but climbed into the dumpster.
"Burrow down and cover yourself with some of the garbage." she instructed. She could tell he was doing his best not to heave from the thought. "I know it's nasty." she sighed. "Just do it." She waited until he was well covered before she left to hunt the aggressors.
"I hadn't thought about the dumpsters." Scott admitted as he watched her creep along the building. "We always eliminate the aggressors, then save the victim."
"The last two times we used this program, the victim was injured." Hank reminded him.
"I've been tellin' ya that was the way ta go." Logan said. "Take away their advantage. The control of the kid is the power in this one. Jubes knows what she's doin'."
"I need to see her power level." Hank told them. "Is there any way you can make her use full power?"
Scott looked over at Logan, thinking. He had an idea he was sure Logan would hate.
"What?" Logan asked, suspiciously.
"You won't like it." he said.
Logan's eyes narrowed. "What's yer idea?"
"There aren't that many people who can frighten her enough to make her let go and blast with full power." Scott told him.
Logan was getting a very bad feeling about this.
"Do it." Hank ordered.
"Wait a minute, Blue." Logan objected.
"I need to see what her power levels are." Hank told him. "That last paff was near the highest level she had before she left. I think she has more in her."
"But scarin' her ain't always the best thing ta do." Logan warned them.
"Do it." Hank repeated.
Scott flipped a switch and another hologram was added to the room.
Logan's breath caught when he recognized the new addition. "Yer gonna be sorry ya did this." he told them. Logan had never told them the whole story. He sat and watched helplessly as her biggest fear approached her back.
Jubilee shot two paffs at the last aggressor, confident that she had beaten the test and turned to get the victim to take him to the safe zone. The sound of footsteps made her pause. Someone else was out there.
When he walked out of the shadows, all she could see was his black clad legs. There was something familiar about his walk that filled her with dread. Her heart began to pound and her mouth went dry.
"My, how you've grown." the cultured voice said.
Jubilee was suddenly overwhelmed with nausea. "Bastion." she whispered.
"I'm please that you remember me." he said as he stepped out of the shadows pulling on his heavy leather gloves.
Jubilee hated those gloves. He only wore them when he was hitting her. He did not want to soil his good calf-skin gloves with her blood.
"You're no longer the frightened but defiant little girl." he observed as he walked around her, his eyes going over her still form. "What are you now? The frightened but defiant woman?"
His leather covered finger trailed down her cheek raising goose bumps of fear as it went. "Tell me. Did your 'Wolvie' ever find you? Did he rescue you after that traitor, Daria, let you out or did you wander the desert until you found someone you could dupe into taking you in?"
He grabbed her chin and a cruel grip and forced her to look in his eyes. "It was you, you know." he sneered. "You told me where they were. All I needed to do was go and get them. I couldn't have done it without you."
"No!" she whimpered. "I didn't!"
"Oh, but you did." he corrected with a smile. "You told me everything. You told me where they were, their powers and weaknesses. You even told me their real names and histories. I knew everything about them. Even your precious 'Wolvie'. All I had to do was go and get them."
"But you couldn't keep them." she said in a tremulous voice.
"Ah, yes." he said, releasing her chin. "You're little stunt with the control panel." He leaned in and whispered in her ear. "Tell me, did my guards treat you ... well?"
"What's he sayin' ta her?" Logan demanded as he watched Bastion whisper to Jubilee.
"The computer is reacting and interacting with her." Hank explained. "He is saying what she expects him to say."
Logan watched as color fled from her face and just as quickly, return. He recognized this look and it did not bode well.
"Uh, guys." he called. "I don't think she's afraid."
"Her heart rate, respirations and adrenaline levels are markedly elevated." Hank told him. "She has all the indications of fear."
"I think she's gettin' mad." he told them as he moved closer to the window.
"What?" Scott asked.
"According to all the data, she's afraid." Hank insisted.
"I'm tellin' ya, she's gettin' mad." Logan warned them. "Ya better tell Rogue ta take cover." He watched as Jubilee's color continued to heighten, her mouth stretching into a thin line. "Get down!" he yelled as he threw himself to the floor.
Just as he hit the floor, a bright flash of light followed immediately by a deafening boom filled the control room. The safety glass shattered under the pressure and flew across the room, embedding inches deep in the opposite wall.
He rose, shaking his head. He could not hear the clicks and hums of the equipment in the control room nor the breathing of his fellow occupants. He stuck a finger in his ear and shook it, trying to clear the ear. He tried to pop his ears by yawning.
'Damn.' he thought. He was effectively deaf until his eardrums regrew. He checked on Scott and Hank, both alive but unconscious. He looked out through the broken window to see Jubilee standing in the middle of the empty room, her hands held stiffly at her sides, plasma dripping from her fingers and anger clear on her face.
"Jubes!" he yelled.
Her eyes snapped to the window, her hands raising to paff him.
"It's me, Jubes." he yelled
Her eyes began to clear and a look of confusion flashed across her face. "Wolvie?" She could hear the mansion alarms blaring.
"Check on Rogue." he ordered.
"Rogue?" she asked, still confused.
"In the safe zone." he told her. "Make sure she's okay."
It suddenly dawned on her why she was in the Danger Room and what had happened. "Rogue!" she gasped. "Oh my God! What have I done?"
She ran to the pile of holographic emitter panels that had landed in the safe corner of the room and began to lift them, crying out for her friend.
"Please be okay." she begged as she removed the last panel to reveal the pale face of the untouchable Rogue. She was not breathing.
