1
"Iceman, you want to go down to the Danger Room?", X-23 asked in the middle of one of the mansion's common rooms.
However, all stigma associated with not being stupid had long ago dissapated. "No, X-23."
"But you're highly mobile now that you've learned that ice slide technique, and can attack from a long range with an intricate/"
"I said 'no'.", Bobby reminded.
X-23 huffed.
"Hey, Nightcrawler. Do you want to go down to the Danger Room?", she asked.
Kurt's tail twitched along with his eyebrow. "No danke, fraulein."
"But you're stronger and faster and more agile than I am. Plus, the atmosphere of that alternate dimension really messes with my senses."
Kurt folded his arms and glared at her. She looked away. "Well, you also have a tail."
Then she saw another person to accost. "Ms. Storm, do you want to go down to the Danger Room?"
"What have we told you about challenging the staff, child?", Ororo gently chided.
"But your using winds to fly keeps you out of range while your control of the environment is a nigh-impenetrable obstacle. Plus, a powerful enough bolt of lighting is sure to/"
"What have we told you about challenging the staff, child?"
X-23 took on a sullen expression. "Not to."
"And wh/"
"Because it affects the teacher student dynamic."
Ororo stood a bit taller. "I'm certain you can find a peer to take on." The woman saw the expressions in the room over X-23's shoulder. "...somewhere in the mansion."
X-23 stood in thought as the woman coasted away. Then she felt the foot falls of a girl on the stairs, heard the sneakers ruffle the carpet behind her, and felt someone stupid enough to tug on her jacket from behind. She turned only to find Paige standing there.
"I'll fight you.", the blonde offered.
X-23 regarded the girl. "Thank you for the offer. But seriously, do you think that Magma and Sunspot would agree to a match if the Danger Room's molten metal scenario is up and running?"
Paige pushed, well, she applied pressure with both her arms to X-23. "I'll kick your ass."
X-23 rolled her eyes. "Fine. If we check that Dr. Beast is in the building and not going anywhere then we'll go down to the Danger Room, alright?
2
X-23 stood in front of Paige in the middle of the Danger Room. "Okay, how do you want to do points? By ring outs or knockdowns?"
"Let's go by either tap out or knock out. And I heard you don't use your claws with the others, but it's okay by me.", Paige stated.
X-23 glared with annoyance. "Husk, I/"
Her words were cut off as the blonde punched her so hard it broker her nose, rang her unbreakable skull, and nearly popped her eyes out of the socket to dangle in front of her face. *snikt* Just as the muscles in her eye sockets were healing and pulling their charges back into place and sneezing enough to reinflate her nose into position, the very thing she both feared and never expected to happen happened. The instinct that was natural, well maybe not to most everyone but natural to her, did its level best to take the conditioning she was fighting so hard to escape for a ride. She looked down at her extended claws and saw Paige's face.
X-23 screamed. She turned to Paige. "I'm so sorry. We have to get you to Dr. Beast, right...away..." She slowed as she saw the gemstone face framed by blonde hair and the skin of an ear dangling down its neck. There were barely two parallel marks across her cheek.
"Danger Room: authorization Husk. Target all occupants with less lethal ammunition.", Paige called out.
Her opponent was immediately stung by bruising pepper balls, catching and breaking into a fine powder of chemical fire on her smell and in her eyes and on her tongue and through her skin. Then a volley of richochets hit X-23, reflected from the gouges they tore in the skin covering Paige's topaz form. Her hearing did pick up the ionization in the air, so she only took a glancing burn through her coat as she slid out of the path of a laser that only refracted through Paige's new gemstone body. Robotic pillars popped out of the floor and spun metal beams at the two.
X-23 bared her fangs in a smile. She flipped over page, grabbing the girl by the shoulder, and tossing her into the path of one of the beams which snapped it clean off. The brunette used Paige's change in momentum to pull her wrist and force her head into the path of another spinning metal club, and another, and then ground the pillar to a halt by shoving Paige's face into it until the motor burned out. Paige was pulled head over heels only to get pelted by a batch of steel bearings X-23 didn't want to get hit by. X-23 kicked the now prone girl through the firing mechanism.
Paige barely had time to shake her head in disbelief as X-23's somehow not only perceived the incoming bolo but bent under it to catch one of its ball ends. Soon enough, the brunette was using its rope to literally whip the pants off her.
3
Rogue and Sam reached for the refrigerator door handle at the same time. It was situations like these that Rogue always wore gloves. Unfortunately, Sam's fingers brushed her wrist above her glove. "Ooh, sorry.", she blurted out.
"No problem.", Sam wheezed from the floor. "Just, ya know, give me a minute."
"Uh, what were you looking for?", Rogue asked.
"A Coke.", he replied. Rogue handed him the grape flavored soda he meant. "What were you after?"
Rogue displayed the orange soda she held. "A Coke."
"You southerners are, like, so weird.", Kitty said from the kitchen island. She looked back at the cook book and then at her assembled ingredients: an apple, a wooden skewer, some peanuts, and a bowl of smoking blue paste. "How is the caramel apple supposed to end up looking like that? Am I supposed to mash the apple into the paste?"
"Kitty, do you know where X-23 is? We're supposed to meet up with Todd.", Rogue asked.
Kitty realized her mistake and phased the skewer into the apple. When she let go, the apple popped as the wood was no longer out of sync and existed within the same space as the apple. With a furrowed brow she answered, "Yeah, she's like down in the Danger Room with Paige."
Rogue looked to the floor but Sam was already reaching his hand up. She grabbed it with her gloved hand and pulled him up to his feet before they raced off.
2
"Your mother proves that just because you can put lipstick on a pig doesn't mean you can make it dance."
A clang rang out as Paige's face deepened the dent in the metal plate. X-23 demanded again, "Tap out."
"Your mother wears army boots because that's all the boys at the base have to pay her with."
Another clang rang out as Paige's face deepened the dent in the metal plate.
Paige pushed herself up with nigh-undeniable strength. X-23 kicked her legs out from under the other girl and dragged her off side. At it least it was a fresh metal plate to dent with her face.
"Stop!", X-23 heard Rogue yell.
The girl stood up and stomped on the back of Paige's head. "But she hasn't tapped out yet." She looked down. "Right?"
Paige mumbled in response. X-23 lifted her boot to stomp again.
"Don't you dare!", Rogue admonished. She pointed sternly just behind X-23.
"Fine.", the other girl folded her arms and stepped away.
Sam tried to help up the gemstone statue of his sister. The statue batted his hands away and turned over. "If you want to help, grab my bag from the air lock." He ran off.
Rogue looked around at the destroyed equipment and bits and pieces of surface gore scattered around the Danger Room. "So what happened?"
"Well, Iceman turned me down. Then Nightcrawler turned me down. Then Ms. Storm turned me down."
Rogue frowned. "You aren't supposed to challenge the teachers. You aren't really supposed to go around challenging us despite getting permission to."
"It's okay. I asked her.", the gemstone statue said while standing. She pulled a ridiculously oversized Xavier Academy for Gifted Youngsters over her head and it fell into a dress. A simple press against her nose and the somehow translucent topaz cracked to reveal the completely opaque Paige underneath. The girl proceeded to brush off micrometer thin flakes of topaz from her skin and try to shake it out of her now quite soft hair.
"You're bleeding.", Rogue pointed out.
The other girls scoffed. "No, I'm not.", they said in unison.
"Yes, you are.", Rogue said to Paige.
Her and her brother scoffed. "Hogwash."
Rogue pointed at Paige's face. X-23 paled. "Oh no. I am so sorry."
Paige furrowed her brow. She put a hand to her face and pulled it away to find nothing. Rogue kept pointing. Paige tried again and found nothing. She finally dragged her fingers down and came away with the slightest red smear. "Huh. Those initial claw cuts must have been deeper than I thought."
"You used your claws on her?", Rogue demanded.
"She said I could!", X-23 started. "I didn't mean to. I even made sure Dr. McCoy was here in case something happened. Now I've hurt Husk. And they're going to take away my Danger Room privileges. And they're going to kick me out and send me back to Hydra/"
"No one's going back to any Hyde Ra.", Paige told her. "Why did you guys even come in here? Because little old Paige couldn't even practice in the place all of practice all the time? Like I ain't wrassled you to say uncle before we even had powers?"
"It's not like that, Paige.", Sam lied.
Rogue tried to back him up. "It's just time for us to do that thing with Todd."
X-23's face fell even further. "That is today, isn't it."
Paige sighed. "Alright. You go and get ready to see your beau. Sam and Rogue here will help me get a band-aid on these scratches and we'll try to stay out of sight of the teachers, okay?"
"Are your sure?", X-23 asked. "I didn't mean to hurt you.
"I'm not a blood thirsty animal psychotically on the hunt for prey because you smell like food."
The three looked at her. "No one said you were."
"oh", she nearly squeaked.
"Look, just go wash up and meet me by the front entrance, okay?", Rogue asked.
X-23 nodded and walked off.
"Is that a laser burn on the back of your jacket?", Sam asked her.
"So is the hole in my pants.", X-23 answered. "Don't worry, the burns are already healed."
Sam turned toward his sister again. Paige shrugged sheepishly. "I should put on some pants."
4
Jean opened the door and immediately clenched her eyes shut, as if centering herself. With a passive expression she asked, "Yes, Todd?"
"Uh...I'm here to see X-23 and Rogue, yo?", the boy offered.
Jean turned away from him before taking a breath. As Todd smelled himself Jean called out, "Rogue! Your...Todd is here."
"I'm ready.", Rogue said while walking up to the door. She looked around.
"Where's/"
"I think I can find her.", Rogue cut him off. "Come on in."
Todd rose from his crouch and slunk off behind Rogue. Jean frowned and shook her head.
Rogue led Todd to a rarely used study where X-23 was pacing in front of a kind of cute blonde girl. "Look, I've already got some band-aids on. I'll be fine."
"It's just that I wish there was some way I could help.", X-23 repeated.
Todd asked, "What? With the cuts?"
X-23's eyes were somehow bigger than normal as she nodded. She didn't even reach for him to smell him.
The boy shrugged. "I could help."
Rogue turned to him puzzled. X-23 looked up hopefully. Paige had been staring at him since he came in. "Uh...if'n you want, yo."
"Please." X-23 grabbed his shirt. Todd looked to Rogue who just gestured to Paige. He regarded the cute blonde who noticed his attention and then nodded.
"It might get weird?", he warned.
"What isn't around here?", the girls said in unison.
"Um, okay.", Todd began. "I'm going to need a box of tissues. And your help.", he told X-23.
X-23 jumped to attention and brought him a box of tissues. Todd was pealing away the band-aids already. "You've already clotted up. I'm going to have to start you bleeding again but only for a second. Can you hold her head still?"
His girlfriend wrapped Paige in a headlock.
Todd thought about it some more. "You might want to think about something else for a moment. My powers...put some people off."
Rogue stepped to the other side of Paige and took up her hand in one of her gloved ones. "Just keep looking at me, okay, shug."
Paige didn't really pay attention to her.
Todd smacked his lips and then extended his tongue to Paige and then glided it across her cheek. He immediately swabbed his tongue with tissue after tissue. "I've declotted the cut, now I'm going to disinfect. I've figured out how to not make it sting.", he told her. He worked his tongue around his mouth again and liked Paige's face again. After swabbing down his tongue he continued. "Can you use your super sight to line up the edges of her cuts?" X-23 let go of Paige and then pressed her fingers against her face. "Time to seal up.", he said before licking over the scratches. "Is that good enough?"
Rogue pulled out her make-up compact and allowed Paige to examine her face. The blonde wore a confused expression as she couldn't find evidence of her cuts at all. "Wow. Thank you...um, Todd?"
"It's cool, yo. Over at the boarding house, people gotta get patched up on a budget. It just sucks knowing what Pietro and road dust tastes like.", he replied. "So are we going? About the thing?"
X-23 hugged him so hard that she had picked him up. She didn't say anything, just breathed him in and squeezed. "My bones can still snap.", he croaked.
Rogue walked over to him and took one of his hands with her own. "You done good. Let's go."
X-23 took his other hand a step forward. The three were stopped when Todd felt a tug on the back of his shirt.
Paige looked at him and only him, but then seemed to remember the other two girls and looked away. "Todd. You're dating two girls at once."
Todd looked to X-23 and Rogue. "Uh, I guess."
Paige took a breath. "How would you feel about dating three?", she nearly whispered.
Todd looked back to his girl friends. "Is this a trap?"
Paige took back her hand. "Sorry."
X-23 looked to Rogue. While she would swear up and down about how psionic she was, her look communicated both 'shelve it for later' and 'don't let Todd think too much about but reassure him that this isn't a trap'.
"Come on. We're probably late.", Rogue commanded.
5
Jean slammed the door on the three mutants. She turned and finding Scott she hugged him fiercely. Scott led her away from the door. "Still surprised at Todd."
"No, still disgusted with Todd.", she told him. "He's just so goddamn ugly."
Ray and Kurt had just turned the corner to hear her say that. Kurt's blue face froze with his fangs halfway into a sandwich. Ray's off color eyebrows rose to meet his off color hair.
Jean flinched. "Not like...", and she pointed to her eyes. "Like...", and she pointed to her brain and her heart.
The girl blew out a deep sigh. "I'm telepathic, alright. And it's hard to turn off sometimes. And that toad...He's petty: in his grievances, in his lust, in his fears. They're all shallow, slimy wisps of thought. And he's too simple a creature to be anything but rash. That's why he's pushed around by every situation. Hesitant unless he's doing something truly stupid and harmful. Easily bullied because he's too cowardly to have any belief that he's worthwhile. And the true crime is that his belief that he's a disgusting person isn't from the self-realization that he's thirsting to be a parasite and not clever enough to figure out how. He feels like he's constantly confronted with his own worthlessness and instead of trying to be someone better he gets angry at not being pitied, curses his luck, and throws himself into fits of jealousy like some kind of...player hater. His impoliteness isn't even because he was never taught better or because he's making a statement but because he doesn't have an actual compassionate bone in his body. He only acts in someone else's benefit if he fears retribution because he can't even make the connection to manipulating someone with good behavior.
"Even Duncan could care about and feel responsibility for leading his group to victory and taking care of its members, even if it was just the football team or his hangers on or whatever he was identifying with at the time. Mystique was driven and devoted to people in her own way. Fucking Magento is living with us and I don't get the same head ache because he actually cares about other people's future, our future.
"Todd makes me nauseous. He's a hopping mess of character flaws without a redeeming quality underneath. And if Rogue and Laura try to cure him of that putrid souldeep nastiness, they're going to find that there's nothing left."