A/N: I'm back and I hope past my writers block. Yes, storm paranoia total drove all thoughts of this series from my mind for longer than even I like. Isabel has passed though and things went surprisingly well for my area.
Quick Note: I don't feel very confident writing battle like scenarios with explanations of weapons and kicking, punching, fighting movements so this installment may seem a little lacking, but overall I think it turned out well to showcase the powers of a select few.
Thanks, etc:
Winter Fire, I don't quite know where that line came from but once it was written I knew it was a priceless keeper. :-P
SailorSun1, both your requests for more Apocalypse and Rogue moments/interaction as well as an … entertaining reaction from Logan will take place in the next chapter or so.
Ziel1, Egyptian Rogue would be rather interesting to see … maybe in some of the more elaborate garb like Cleopatra. Let me know if you get something drawn up. :-)
Scholar, and all others thank you for you good wishes and I hope you enjoy the chapter.
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Strengths and Weaknesses
"Why are we doing this again, mate?" St. John asked Pietro as he directed the flames of his flamethrower to surround and destroy a disc thrower that had just popped up out of the ground to their left.
"Because once again the X-Men need us to help save their butts and we're going to help them to get even with Apocalypse," the silver haired teen said before dashing off along the path to rescue a lovely damsel in distress.
Quicksilver wrapped an arm around Elizabeth's waist and dragged her from the firing path of a paint gun to save her from being tagged out of the session. When the world stopped spinning from the rapid race away from the weapon, Besty turned on the boy with a furious glare and unleashed her psionic blade.
"I can take care of myself, luv," she growled as she disabled two weapons at once. Her psi blade sliced through a disc thrower on the left side of the path while her katana blade cut into the paint gun on the right.
"Just didn't wanna see that lovely little outfit of yours mucked up by paint, slow poke," Pietro stated as his eyes slowly ran over the tight blue uniform with matching thigh high boots that the young woman wore.
With a groan and roll of her blue eyes, Betsy sheathed her blades and did a series of rapid back flips to remove herself from the firing range of the paint gun that shot up behind Quicksilver and quickly tagged the boy out of the game.
"And you call me a slow poke, luv?" she mocked as he rubbed at the large spot of yellow paint now decorating his uniform.
Suddenly she heard the familiar sound of her twin's sword being swung mightily through the air and she turned just in time to see Brian slice a disc thrower in half right behind her.
"Best stay alert and stop flirting with the fellows, luv," her twin stated as he withdrew his sword from the remains of the machine that would have tagged her out of the game.
"I'm not flirting with them," she said with a flick of her long hair. "They are flirting with me, luv."
"And who can blame us," Nate said as he drew to a stop beside the siblings. "A woman so lovely as you deserves constant flirtation."
She blew him a kiss for that remark and childishly stuck her tongue out at Brian before again unsheathing her katana blade to get back into battle mode.
The branches of the tree above them shook and a laser gun aimed directly at all three of them appeared on the scene. Instinctively the trio dove out of the weapon's path then rolled to their feet in fighting positions to take it out.
Nate beat the twins at destroying the machine though, by telekinetically ripping the gun from the tree and twisting it to a useless chunk of metal on the ground.
Brian went to clap the man on the shoulder and applaud him for a "good show" while Betsy remained a little awestruck from having seen the raw power unleashed in the man at his actions. Though his left eye was now normal, it had glowed a beautiful shade of yellow with his telekinesis and she was a bit … taken by the display of strength.
Just then Scott burst on to the scene at a run with his hand at ready on the controls of his visor.
"How many have we got left?" the 'team leader' asked of the group.
"How many of what?" Nate asked to clarify.
"People left in this?"
"Well, there's us, luv," Betsy replied.
The earth beneath them began to rumble and quake sending the purple haired telepath stumbling against Nate who instantly wrapped a strong arm around her waist to steady her.
"I believe we can take that as a sign Avalanche remains active," Brian said in a clipped English tone.
"Let's go find him," Cyclops ordered before charging past the trio with complete faith that they'd obey.
"Bossy bugger isn't he," Betsy sighed even as she prepared to follow.
With a chuckle Brian took to the air to get a better view of the institute grounds where this massacre ..um… training exercise … was taking place. As he broke through the tree tops he saw the Warren was also flying above the scene and appeared unharmed.
"Been up here long, mate?" he asked the Angel.
"Only since one of those lasers tried scorching my wings," the man replied with a half smile.
"How goes the carnage?"
"From what I can see there are about ten still in this and an unknown number of weapons and traps. No matter how good the remaining ten are, I've no doubt we'll all be out of this within the next hour."
"Well then, chum, what do you say we go out in a blaze of glory?" Brian said with a cocky grin before swooping down toward a spot where Amara, Bobby and Ray were working as a team to blast weapons aimed in their directions.
Sighing in resignation the winged gentleman followed the other man's example but made his dive toward Betsy and Nate.
"Look out," the female telepath shouted as Warren's feet touched ground.
It was too late though, as he landed directly in front of the paint gun Nate had been prepared to take out.
Angel cursed with surprising creativity as the pristine white feathers of his wings were coated in thick yellow paint in the seconds before Betsy could knock him aside to slice her psionic blade through the machine.
"Tough break," Nate smirked with complete insincerity as the winged mutant was forced to leave the field having been tagged out.
~~ Play nice, luv. ~~
The telepathic male turned to Betsy with a sexily arched brow.
~~ Only with you, doll. ~~
She blushed slightly at his comment followed by a playful wink before getting back her game face and turning to search the course for more obstacles.
As the pair began making their way along the path to where they figured the remainder of the team to be, Warren groaned and stalked across the lawn toward the front of the institute where all the other losers were gathered.
"You need to pick your landing zones more carefully and stop trying to impress the girl," Logan growled as the young man took a set next to Jean.
Pietro, who'd gotten a similar criticism when he was tagged out, rolled his eyes at the man in charge of this exercise.
"How much longer are you gonna punish us, mate?" St. John asked as he rubbed the side of his head where he'd just been smacked by a flying disc he'd not seen coming.
"You need to spend less time on each target and don't get so fancy with the flames, Pryo," Wolverine critiqued while ignoring the Australian's question.
A quick look around the groaning mutants revealed that Amanda, Cybelle, Evan, Fred, Jean, John, Kitty, Kurt, Pietro, Piotr, Remy, Roberto, Scaleface, Stall, Tabitha and Warren had all been tagged out by the paint or disc weapons.
Out on the course, still locked in the traps they'd fallen into were Callisto, Caliban, Healer, Jamie and Amanda's mother Margali.
That left Amara, Betsy, Bobby, Brian, Lance, Nate, Ray, Scott, and Wanda still in this thing.
The bunch watching had long stopped cheering on their teammates to defeat the machines and were now simply waiting for the last holdouts to fall so this exercise would be over and they could get some lunch and lots of Aspirin.
Logan's eagle eyes seemed to monitor every inch of the battlefield, which they actually did with the help of a handheld monitor that showed him the activity from the security cameras recording the action.
He frowned as Bobby pushed Amara into Brian's arms and took the laser blast intended for Magma. The Iceman shook off his ice shield and left the field with a slightly relieved sigh.
"Good move protecting Amara, but you shoulda have frozen the weapon rather than take the hit yourself," the man informed the most recent of the fallen as the boy flopped to the ground next to Tabitha.
"I'm iced out, man," Bobby informed their trainer with a grimace.
Wolverine nodded and returned to watching the last of the fighters.
Ray was the next one tagged out, having been distracted by a shriek from Amara as Lance started an earthquake around them to sink two paint guns beneath the ground.
The boy snarled at Avalanche for the maneuver before stalking off the field wiping furiously at the paint decorating his uniform.
Wanda, with both hands surrounded by electric blue, was calmly watching her fellow Brotherhood member's back as he took a moment to steady the young X-Girl that was leaning against his side.
For a minute, no weapons popped up from the ground or out of the trees to fire upon the mutants that began to stand together in the pathway.
Suddenly the ground beneath them all began to give way.
"Knock it off, Alvers," Scott was heard to yell as he tried to keep his balance.
"It ain't me this time, Cyke," the young man growled in response.
Sensing a trap, Nate grabbed onto Amara and Betsy while Brian, the stronger of the two males with the ability to fly, had Lance, Scott and Wanda hold on to him as they flew everyone away from the sinking ground to what they felt was a safe location.
The very second their feet touched ground in that location, weapons sprang up from everywhere and began firing blindly in their direction.
Betsy, Brian and Nate hurriedly threw up protective shields around themselves to prevent any damage, but the others did not have such powers.
Amara was just gearing up to launch lava at two laser guns when a disc hit her from the left and a blast of paint splattered over her right side.
Lance was taken out of the session when a disc caught him in the back of the head and sent him reeling to the ground.
Scott dove and rolled away from several items flung his way, his visor firing rapidly to destroy and divert discs sent in his direction, but he too was tagged from behind when a paint ball hit and exploded against his lower back.
Wanda fought as best she could to keep projectiles from hitting her, but she couldn't see everything and was slammed in the ribs along her left side by two fast moving discs while her attention had been focused on disabling a paint gun to her right. Crying out at the sharp pain, she doubled over and fell to the ground clutching her side as the ammunition continued to fly around her.
"You must stop zhis now, Logan," Kurt jumped up to say as he watched the girl on the ground.
"It's almost over, elf," the man replied clearly not willing to call a halt to things until every team member had fallen.
Yellow eyes flaring, the Nightcrawler teleported into the fray placed, grabbed onto Lance and Scott and quickly ported them to the safety of where everyone else sat.
Jean instantly rushed to make sure Scott was ok while Kurt went back for Amara and Wanda.
From their protective bubbles, Betsy, Brian and Nate were relieved to see the fallen mutants safely removed from the scene.
As the girls were moved to safety, the trio made their charges at the weapons surrounding them.
Brian swung his sword strongly through three machines while Nate's telekinesis twisted first one then another laser gun out of trees around them. Looking like the ninja she'd been trained to be, Betsy leapt past discs and lasers fired in her direction and mercilessly drove her psionic and katana blades into any firing hunk of metal she saw.
No matter how strong the three were, they had been on this field fighting these things for well over two hours now and their powers were tapping out. Wanting to hold onto their shields as long as possible the three halted all use of their powers except that.
The Braddock twins with their swords swinging sandwiched Nate safely between them as they all tried to get out of this shooting gallery.
With an angry curse, Nate turned to the path in front of them and watched a disc thrower spring from the ground. Even though it would weaken his shield to the point where it may prove ineffective, the dark haired man crushed the device with his mind like an empty soda can. Before the yellow glow had faded from his left eye from his actions he felt the impact of a paint capsule against his right shoulder.
Betsy allowed herself a gasp of surprise at his being tagged out before focusing more forcefully on the weapons determined to take her and Brian out as well.
~~ You take the high road and I'll take the low, luv. ~~
Brian turned to argue her telepathic suggestion, but saw that his sister was already racing along the path away from him.
Sighing, he took to the sky with the intention of drawing as much fire away from her as possible.
While in flight just hovering above the weapons hidden among the tree branches, he swung his sword with the same power he achieved on ground and disabled many of the nasty things.
On the ground, Betsy was showing signs of wear, but still had a wicked smile on her face as she ran and dove along the path with her katana blade slicing through machines that popped up around her before they even had time to prepare to fire at her.
Unfortunately a surprisingly large laser gun appeared from the fountain in the center of the courtyard and began fired at them both.
Instantly preoccupied with dodging the dangerous blasts and disabling the daunting weapon, the twins turned in that direction and ceased paying much attention to the field behind them.
Even as the twins' sword blades struck the laser at the same moment, they each felt a projectile slam into their backs and finally take them out of the game.
Both true warriors who despised any loss in combat, they instantly turned angry blue eyes to glare furiously at Logan for having put them through such a rigorous and unwinnable training session.
Neither of them cared about the ruins they left behind of an astonishing number of sophisticated computer driven weaponry.
Nor did Brian take pleasure in the fact that Amara and Tabitha were looking at him with definite feminine appreciation. Betsy was equally uncaring of the fact that Nate, Pietro, Scott, Warren and even Logan were all admiring her for her fierce beauty and skills in battle.
Instead they both sheathed their swords and stalked across the lawn toward the man in charge of the exercise.
"You had better have gotten all you needed there, luv," Betsy said with a regal calm that belied the fury in her every tensed muscle. "I will not subject myself to such a waste of time again."
"If you're unwilling to face an unbeatable foe, Braddock, the runways of London's fashion district might be a better place for you than here going up against Apocalypse," Logan said with equal calm as he turned his back on her to address the others. "You all did an outstanding job this morning. We'll have a much easier session in the Danger Room tomorrow to work on building team spirit and cooperation in battle. Jean, Kurt, Scott and Ray take the injured to Hank in the infirmary. Everyone else hit the showers and prepare for lunch."
Finally released from the cages they'd been pinned in, Callisto, Caliban, Healer, Jamie and Margali all stumbled across the lawn to join the others all glaring daggers into Logan's back as he calmly walked into the mansion.