Chapter Ten:

Scott Takes a Beating

Ruby, Opal, Katherine, Fallon, Carmen and Cameron had been through almost a month of physical training before the X-Men decided to go one-on-one with each of the girls.

Scott was the luckiest man alive! He was suiting up and getting ready to go into the Danger Room with Carmen. They were in an open field setting, to take it slow and easy at first.

"You know there's something about an anatomically correct jump suit that really turns me on," Carmen said as they circled one another. "What about you, Cyclops?"

Scott ignored the statement and decided to initiate the fight by throwing a punch that hit her in the gut. She reeled back in surprise, but seemed more startled then hurt.

"That's not very gentlemanly," she rebuked.

'I'm not taking it easy on you," Cyclops warned.

"Then neither will I," she decided and kneed him in a place the author would rather not name. She was a little surprised to see him impervious.

"I'm not your boyfriend, and this is not a date," he explained. "I was expecting that."

"No matter," she told herself somersaulting down into a handstand. Her legs caught his neck and she pulled him down under her. He managed to react quick enough spinning his body around and forcing himself up, which set Carmen spinning into a back flip. She landed on her hand wrong and shrieked in pain.

"You okay," Scott asked getting up and moving over to her. Unexpectedly, she rolled onto her back and swung her leg in an arch that sent him down on top of her, his face just a few inches from hers.

"I am now," she said with a sly smile.

"That's enough," he affirmed getting up.

"Jean, you can send Fallon in," he said into his mic, to Jean in the control room.

Carmen left and Fallon slipped in. The setting changed to an ancient Egyptian court hall. Fallon looked around in surprise.

"I like this," she said. "Could you change it to a Panama beach or something? You know set up some lawn chairs and get martinis with the little umbrellas." He laughed and smiled.

"You nervous," he asked. Fallon wasn't very athletic, but she could protect herself, and she had common sense enough to use what ability she had to her best advantage.

"Are you," she questioned.

"I shouldn't think so," he began.

"Then let's begin," she urged. Scott started the fight immediately throwing a blow to her face. She dodged the first and second blow but caught the third in her mouth. Scott heard it crack.

"Oh God sorry," he began. "You okay?" She put out a hand to stop him. She screwed her jaw, it cracked again.

"It just does that sometimes," she explained. "I'm not hurt. Keep going." He let her establish the exchange of blows this time. She went to kick him, but he caught her foot, but in the process his ankle rolled and lost his footing, which sent them both down.

Fallon some how reacted mid fall and got in a position where she had both her feet on his chest, with all his weight on her. She curled back and forced him off all at once. That sent him half way across the room and gave her barely enough time to spring to her feet.

He saw a weak spot upon catching himself and decided to charge her, and prayed she'd execute the appropriate parry.

She didn't do what he had wished she would have, but tried a revised rendition of it by bracing herself and ducking low in hopes to flipping him over her shoulder, but he jumped and grabbed her around the waist, turning before the fall so he came down on top of her. Pinning her face down on the ground.

"Should have used the cross down," he said as she writhed to no avail.

"That block is *wrong*," she insisted.

"How so," he asked.

"If I had went down into a straddle and forced you over that way, you'd be left on the offensive and I'd still have to get up before I could parry," she said. "And it's like you said in class: 'Don't use an action unless it helps you gain an advantage'."

"Or lose a disadvantage," he continued. "Don't listen to the wisdom of half a proverb, learn from the whole maxim."

"You even talk like a literature teacher," she warned bucking her head back hitting him in the nose. His hands went to the flow of blood and she slipped out from under him.

He struggled up and she raised her hands in parley. He whipped the blood from his lip and she continued.

"How was I to know you saw an advantage," she asked.

"I would have had to in order to have attempted such a intrepid movement," he continued. "If I had a hand weapon, you can guess where that would be going."

"Don't think about that part of me," she demanded.

"Trust me," he said with a small laugh. "The cross down is the better parry."

"How would you know unless you knew what I hoped to accomplish in my defense movement," she asked.

"Because I saw that same stroke, from the same angle as you, to the same result," he explained.

"You," she questioned. "But you always go by the rules."

"Until I find it fit to write my own," he explained. "Take it from me, the cross down is the appropriate block."

"If your fit to continue," she said raising her fists.

"I'm fit," he said. And so the two combatants continued to hammer on one another. He would punch her, she would kick him and so on.

It lasted about an hour more, neither one conceding an inch until Scott got his arm around her neck, her body held close to his. She kicked her leg up and hit him in the face he lurched back and she spun around and went to throw another cuff, but he caught her arm, twisted it, and brought her over his shoulder and down onto the ground.

She started up, but his foot was immediately on her upper body, keeping her down.

Her lip swollen, nose bleeding, she had a black eye, but she was going to win this.

"Give it a rest," he said. "Before you get yourself killed."

She grabbed his ankle and brought him down beside her and rolled on top of him.

"I don't like to lose," she said.

Scott only knew one person as stubborn as Fallon and it was scary how much they were alike sometimes.

In one hard motion he tried to flip them both over, had he been heavier it might have worked, but as he came up she moved her weight to further up his trunk and they both came down with her knees on his elbows as she sat on his chest prohibiting his movement to thrashing his legs uselessly and breathing.

"Game, set, match," she declared getting up and offering him a hand.

Scott liked Fallon but he detested losing, especially to his own students. He pulled her down and sprung up.

"Keep your ass down," he said brushing the blood off his lip.

"Son of a bitch," she began under her breath, but he was already gone.

***

Scott got a short break before going up against one of his additional better students, Cameron Elva.

She had a lot of trouble moving with out thinking which left her weak. She acted too slow taking too much time thinking of which block she was supposed to use. Finally Cyclops stopped.

"Hit me," he commanded. She got closer to him cautiously and threw a well- planned chop at his neck. He reacted instantaneously and went to flip her, but she grabbed on to him and wound up on him pig-a-back method.

"What the-" he began before collapsing under her hundred odd pounds. "Well at least she acted on impulse."