I stand in the corner watching as the green-haired girl, Lorna, or Polaris as we're supposed to call her when training, turns the robot into a pile of scrap metal. Kurt's the first over to congratulate her, smiling and laughing. I feel like an outsider. Rogue comes and stands next to me.
"It's good to have you back sugah."
"Thanks Rogue."
Logan turns to me.
"Thistle, let's see whether you can remember your training."
Kitty (Shadowcat), Bets (Psylocke), Bobby (Iceman- how unoriginal) and John (I mean, honestly?) wander over to join Jubes, who didn't bother with a codename, Kurt and Rogue. I gulp. Logan is standing in front of me, grinning slightly. Then I close my eyes. Find the centre point. And allow the plants to spread out from my heart. Hardwood for defence, nettle, thistle and bramble for offence. And digitalis. Belladonna. Poisons. I'm good at poisons. Logan gives me a cursory glance.
"Good. Mixture of defence and offence. Does the wood impede mobility?"
I shake my head. He nods. Then lunges. I duck, managing to miss the first blow. I feel the hairs on the nettle inject their poison, feel the thistle being ripped from my skin. Logan doesn't make much noise but I let him lunge again. And I stab him with the poison-soaked wooden splinter. Logan staggers back, coughs and makes a horrible noise. Maybe I overdid the poisons? Oh, please don't let me have killed him!
He staggers upright and grins.
"That was a good move."
Then he lunges at me and scores appear in my wood where he slashed me. I yelp in pain. He appears to have forgotten that injuries I sustain as a plant are converted onto my human body. I'm still trying to get rid of the EM4JO carved into my trunk when I was a tree. We've taken to injecting Warren's blood into me. Warren, I should point out, is our probationary tenth member. The scar's healing up but when I find out who EM is, they are so dead. Then Logan has slammed into me, forcing me to execute a barrel roll. Kitty whoops and breaks my concentration, turning me back to normal and allowing dripping sap to seep from my cuts. I wince as Logan, not able to stop in time, comes crashing into me. Kurt's over by us in a second, pulling Logan off of me. His golden eyes show worry.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah."
I cough and freeze. Greenish-red sap is now coating my hand. Kurt immediately goes into leader-mode, which he shares with Kitty.
"Bobby, get Dr McCoy. Rogue, get Cyclops. Jubilee, get Josh down here now."
I can't miss a chance as good as this.
"Thought you hated me."
He looks as if he wants to hit me around the head.
"Don't worry Aca. It's going to be alright."
As everything starts to go fuzzy, I feel a rush of excitement. Aca! He called me Aca!
