A/N: OK, you get two chapters in one weekend! Plan well and DON'T READ THIS ONE YET!!! Or if you do don't listen to anything Aceles says! And if Sarah offers to lead my murderous fans to my house, don't let her!! It will take a miracle to get a chapter up next weekend, and if one doesn't come up (time to pull my advertising pitch) go read Unable to Touch in this section. Hopefully it will make everyone happy and I get to keep my overstressed, overworked and unpaid hide for another week! YES!
As the Professor had claimed, Nightcrawler was an excellent fighter. Sabere, however, learned quickly, almost as if she had already learned the skills and now was just refreshing her memory. This was only her sixth day at the Institute and third practice session, but Nightcrawler often had to teleport out of the way of some of her more vicious attacks. Her reflexes were improving, too – she could almost sense when he was about to teleport, and had turned to meet him before he had even reappeared.
Today Nightcrawler was teleporting madly around the training room, escaping blow after blow and making Sabere sprint around after him. Finally she decided to cheat a little, and she threw a telekinetic bar in his path to trip him. As expected, he fell head over heels into the wall, blinking at her in surprise. Sabere grinned and released one of her knives, floating it down to his current eye level and sending it flying into the wall next to his head.
Except he moved, and the knife sank deep into his right shoulder.
He yelled and sank back down, pulling out the knife before it could do any more damage. Sabere dropped down at his side, reflexively establishing a painblock while entering the healing trance. She cupped both hands over the wound, and watched proudly as a pale blue glow formed around her hands and the injury. She held it there for a few moments, subconsciously reconstructing blood vessels, muscle, skin…The wound healed and the glow faded. Sabere relaxed and removed her hands, already feeling the beginning of a headache between her eyes.
Kurt inspected the bloodied hole in his shirt, running a finger over the smooth skin. He raised his eyebrows in surprise and met her gaze. Sabere shivered – but from the demon face or my feelings? – and shrugged, embarrassed.
"I'm sorry – I got so caught up in the fight, I didn't – I really am sorry - "
To her surprise and immense relief, Kurt laughed. "I believe you have simply made up for all the times I have nearly frightened you to death. But rest assured, if you did not have that healing gift, things would not have ended so well."
"That wouldn't have been fatal – "
"No, but I certainly wouldn't be able to move as well, and then where would we be? I would be very grateful if you did not do that again, but you took care of everything quite efficiently. Xavier will be impressed."
"What, that I nearly killed one of his X-Men during a weapons practice?" She was still in shock and was quite surprised that Kurt was taking this so well.
He simply laughed, and to her very great surprise, he kissed her cheek and vanished.