They Never Trained Me For This
Chapter 10

Well, it had to happen sooner or later....

---nt

Logan was trying hard to keep his emotions hidden as he stomped towards the headmaster's office. He and Charles had been called with bad news.

He tried hard to ignore the battered and bruised young men that sat in the hall. Most of them were at least a foot taller than he was, but they looked like a collection of broken toys tossed in a corner and forgotten. Some of them glared at the two men, holding ice packs to heads, hands, ribs, knees and points in between.

The woman in the front office was expecting them. She sniffed and told them to go in. The two visitors glanced at each other, ready for whatever lay inside.

---nt

"So, what is your power? All you freaks have powers."

Laura ignored the blond haired boy who poked at her shoulder. They all did. The students of the Xavier Institute ate together. They moved together. They'd asked politely to have their lockers together; the space had been promptly labeled 'mutie row' by some of the local wits. The only thing they couldn't do was have all their lunches together because they weren't all in the same classes.

There had been a few fights, but nothing that many of the felt was worth mentioning. The bigots had paid for their tickets and taken their rides. Of course, any fight had to be reported if it was seen by the school's faculty, and at home the instructors and the Professor asked about any bruises or scrapes. There had been meetings with the principle and the school board and lawyers from the City.

He poked again. Without pausing, Laura twisted, batting the pencil to the ground, before she kicked it under the table. "It is my pencil now, Frank. Please leave me alone." She turned back to her lunch, stabbing her fork into her salad angrily. The mouthful never made it to her lips.

"Hey, hands off! I'm just trying to eat lunch." Moonstar had two antagonists. One of them took a flask from inside of his jacket, shaking it suggestively. "Oh, come on, how about a little firewater?"

Elizabeth's hand on her friend's shoulder stopped the hallucinations before Mirage could inflict them. A short, sharp shake of the head reminded everyone of Xavier's rule. No fighting. They could take a little more, then they would run away. Only if they couldn't retreat could they get away with fighting, but they couldn't just run for the corner. Bobby and Ray had been grounded for three weeks already for that this year.

"Oh, it's so cute, your girlfriend doesn't want you to fight. Hey, is the purple hair natural." Fingers stroked down the back of Elizabeth's head. She shuddered.

That boy took the the heavy ceramic plate to the face like a discus. His head snapped back with a grunt. His buddy with the flask barely had time to register the carton of milk that was aimed at his eye.

There was a clatter as Laura's chair went backwards and she upwards. She jumped backwards with the grace and power of an acrobat, landing in the middle of the table behind her. Her hands cupped two heads, knocking them together with a sound like a Bigfoot hitting a tree with a branch. A foot shot back, catching one boy square in the chest. Then she went forward, avoiding her lunch and jumping over her teammates.

Her heels crashed down on one boy's collar bones, before both feet slammed into his sternum. That shot her back, beside the boy she'd thrown the plate at. Her hand dropped down, between his legs, squeezing, twisting, crushing as she lifted him onto the table, before she slammed her elbow into his temple. He slithered to the floor in a heap.

A pair of arms went around her middle, over hers, pulling her off the table. Her head snapped back, joined by the wet pop as her skull crashed into a nose. He was tough, he didn't let go- her head snapped back again. He wasn't that tough, he let go this time with a scream. She stomped down hard, the heel of her boot raking his shin painfully, before heading back in.

The trays were a fiberglass laminate, designed for abuse in schools, military facilities and prisons. One of the boys raised his like a shield. A short, loud scream went with the palm strike that snapped it like balsa wood, training and instinct letting Laura find it's flaw, before she grabbed his shirt front. The minor details became a blur to her after she headbutted him; he was out cold.

There was a general panic to clear the lunch room as a tiny tornado proceeded to systematically treat each of the hostile boys and their friends as her personal punching bags. One almost made it the door before she chased him down, and dragged him back. She was far from done with them.

---nt

Laura was standing before the headmaster's desk, stiffly at attention, her eyes on a point in space a hands breadth above his head. Something red and smelling of tomato's smudged her shirt and rode up into her hair. There were also the scents of milk, burger grease and italian dressing. She was the only one on the carpet, everyone else was already back in class.

"You are in serious trouble, young lady." Logan's voice was a growl. He'd been relived to see her ok, as relieved to see that the young fools in the hall weren't corpses. He'd known that she was involved, he'd been asked for specifically in the phone call. He had expected there to be others as well.

She didn't move other than to acknowledge them with a finger twitch.

"Laura, was it absolutely necessary to fight them all?" The Professor was calm. He'd been called here before. Unless they could get approval to run the Institute as a true and private high school, he would be again, and it was something he dreaded and hated. But he was surprised that it was Laura.

"Yes sir. They train as a team. Attacking one of them would mean they were all under attack. The best option was to make as fast and efficient an example of what the smallest of us can do to the largest of them. The psychological effects combined with the implication of what might happen if we were to all react to their provocation showed the greatest probability of deescalating potential future issues."

The principle blinked in surprise. This was about twenty times as many words than she'd said to him, and they weren't like any he expected from most students. He'd made a point of talking to all of the mutants at the start of the year, and she'd struck him as aloof and cold but studious then. She'd been quiet since then. Even her blind friend had had shouting matches with people. He'd figured her for the Xavier Institute's pacifist, non-violent.

"And why was that, Laura." Charles was using his calm and soothing shrink voice. "Did they pose a threat to you?"

She snorted. "No. They pawed Danielle and Betsy. Attacking one student of the Xavier Institute is to attack us all. The others behaved as you requested, they did not use their powers despite the provocation. They should not be punished; I am the only one who acted. None of the injuries will require more than ice and rest."

"So that made it alright in your mind?" Logan's tone was carefully neutral, but he smelled more worried than angry. Laura knew what he'd expected when he was told there had been a fight. But he wasn't happy, either. Chuck had good lawyers, and it could be shown it was because she was defending her friends, but then she had to take that one more step. She had to do it.

She said nothing.

The headmaster cleared his throat. "Uhm... yes. Mr... Logan? Your daughter is suspended tomorrow, for fighting. Although I wish you and your friends had told me what was happening, I can't let you get into a brawl without consequences, young lady."

Laura made eye contact with the white haired man for the first time. She swallowed. School wasn't difficult, but her assignment as a teenager was to attend school. It gave her time to observe normal students and study their behavior. Her lack of control had endangered her mission.

"And what of the young men?" Xavier lean forward in his chair. He was disappointed in Laura, but the use of the word 'pawed' angered him. Laura used her words precisely, the implication was something that he would not ignore. If the school condoned sexual harassment of his young ladies, he'd unleash his lawyers. But he'd also have a powder keg on his hands- his young people were always simmering with anger at this situation.

"Suspended for the next week, and the ones that were harassing Miss Moonstar and Miss Braddock are off the team, that behavior will not be tolerated. Everyone will sit out the next four hockey games once they are ok'ed to play. That means we don't have a junior varsity team for a while, by the way. You gentlemen do realize that all twenty of them are out there in the hall, don't you?"

Logan bit back on the start of a smile. "Really." He glanced down at his gene daughter- it had seemed like she had taken on quite a few, but he hadn't bothered to count them. Twenty-to-one, and all she needed was clean clothes and a hair brush. Oh yeah, that kind of ratio brought back memories.

---nt

Laura lay on her bed. She hadn't felt like eating. She was grounded. That meant no going into town with Alex this weekend, and she was cleaning the hanger, Blackbird and Velocity. She let herself smile- the cars in the garage were getting polished by the dozen or so who had made comments about her punishment. Jamie had to detail the vans and the Rolls after shouting "that's bullshit" at the Professor, and given how often the inside got cleaned in the X-van, that was a punishment and a half.

She had friends she could count on. All she could do was hope to be worthy of their trust.

Someone once told her she couldn't have family, she couldn't have friends. She couldn't go to school. They told her she had to kill. They told she'd have to find out if she could die one day. They would not be happy with her if they could see her now. Good.

She was alone right now. Rogue and Kitty were out, probably at the Professor's insistence. Isolation and negative social feedback were acceptable punishments. She'd added "sent to bed without dinner" on herself, as self imposed penance for breaking the rules of this house. She had ignored a few knocks on the door.

The knock on the window got her attention. She rolled over, opening the shade. She hissed, "Kurt, go away."

"Not happening." His tail was wrapped around the gutter, letting him hang upside down. "Everyvone wants to make sure you are ok."

"I'm fine. Go away, I'm grounded."

"Ehh, I von't tell anyone. And I'm an instructor, I'm supposed to set a good example." He extended his hand, a silver insulation bag in his fingers. "A half pint of jumble berries and cream, and half a pint of orange sherbet. And your favorite wooden ice cream spoon."

Laura smiled. The mixed strawberry, blackberry, blueberry and cherry ice cream with orange on the side was her favorite. The wooden spoon didn't transmit heat, so the ice cream would stay hard, and the curved, oaken paddle had almost no flavor to it- she'd carved it herself as the optimal tool for the task. But she couldn't take the treat, she was in trouble. She crossed her arms, scowling. She pointed to his tail with her chin- he was hanging by it, but he said it hurt to have others pull it. Contradictory. "Doesn't that hurt?"

"Nein. And Tabby will eat this if you insist."

Laura's hand swiped out- Boomboom got her ice cream over someones dead body. Realizing what she'd done, Laura softened, laughed slightly. "Danke schön, Kurt. How many others are with you on this?"

She felt a sunlight-through-leaves ripple in her mind. One or two. You should have told us sooner how bad it was. And I am proud that you didn't seriously injure them- you showed restraint, and accepted a harder fight than it would have been if you had killed them.

Does that mean I get out of washing the aircraft? She hated picking bugs off the carbon fiber skins. They were low observability aircraft, she had to be careful. Scarring the skin could increase the radar cross section if they turned the beacons off.

The silence told her she should still plan on spending quality time with a sponge and bucket tomorrow.

---Authors notes:
Yes, that Liz Braddock- a young and perhaps slightly shy Psylocke is one of this year's new students. Yeah, a shy Psylocke, not what I was expecting either.

If you look at the episodes of Evo that had X-23, she wasn't as tall as Logan, by quite a bit. He's only 5'3", so she probably isn't more than 4'10" or 11" the night she took out the entire Institute, so she's maybe 5' at this time. If those punks had been trained right, Laura would have been a grease spot, her teammates would have joined in, or she would have brought out the cutlery. Instead, they got ragdoll beat by one tiny girl. I can promise you that word of this will get out to other schools' sports teams.

And if you say it isn't fair, this is. The others got gigged because they yelled at the Prof, Jamie for using language unbecoming an X-man. Or even a New Mutant. Laura's getting to scrub because she didn't NEED to take them all down- making an example out of three or four would have been sufficient. That was just her wanting to hit something.