A/N: Electric Russian: I've already said it but thanks for a flattering review.
Chaos mode: Flattery will get you almost everywhere mate, you're quickly becoming my favourite author on this site.
Da Big Kahuna: Thanks for doing my beta tests (I still don't have any idea what that is but it seems to help.) This could be the start of a beautiful partnership. (I know Corny).
Chapter 4
Conflicting Personalities
Logan turned off the stove and placed an omelette in front of me, taking the chair opposite me he began to eat. We ate in silence, saving the talking till after.
I chucked the now empty plates into the dishwasher and sat back down.
"So how are you finding it here?" Logan asked.
"Ok, I'd like to know what One-eye seems to have against me." Logan must have known whom I meant because he replied instantly. "Cyclops is just worried about his friends and team mates; he has you pegged down as a threat." I could inwardly see why.
"So why don't you want to sleep, bad dreams?" I nodded silently. "Do you want to tell me about it?" I smiled. "What's funny?" Logan asked.
"You just don't seem like the kind of guy who's approachable. Yesterday morning you were just about ready to tear my head off." I looked away from him "To tell you the truth I'm scared."
"Of what?" he asked. He seemed genuinely worried, so I decided to come clean.
"I spied in on the conversation you all were having, this footage you've seen has got me a little agitated. I have the feeling I'm a danger to everyone around me, but I don't know why. Do you ever get the feeling you're not who everyone thinks you are?"
"Sometimes," he replied, "you feeling like that now?"
"I'd just like to ignore it for a moment. You wanted to know about this dream I had…"
"What dream?" Xavier entered the room and took his place at the table; Logan got up and made the professor some coffee. "What dream was that Joseph?" He asked again.
"It was kind of weird, I couldn't see anything but I heard things, first an explosion then two people speaking to one another, Shade and Psylocke they called each other. They were scared of someone, me." I stopped; I didn't want to mention the spine until I found out what it was.
"How did it end?" Logan asked.
"A gunshot, from where I couldn't tell." The door opened again and Evan walked in.
"Morning." He yawned. Logan shifted his gaze to the clock.
"Is that the time? I better get the danger room ready." I watched him leave and Evan took his place.
"Danger room?" I asked him as he made himself some cereal.
"Yeah we have a team training exercise today, I hope you slept well, 'cause these training sessions will tire you out good man."
Great.
*
*
At nine everyone had congregated in the observation room, listening to the briefing from Logan.
"The objective today is simple. Get to the goal. The parameters are that everyone has to make it," he eyed Scott and me "everyone. Now to do this you are all going to have to work together, there will be various types of enemy in your way. Termination is optional, not mandatory. Cyclops is in charge as usual, so look to him for the plan." He pressed a button on the console next to him and the windows went from opaque to translucent, below us was a forest, quite a big one too.
"How the hell?" I heard myself say out loud. Rogue leaned closer.
"Holo-projectors." She answered.
"Oh," was all I could say. Logan coughed loudly to regain attention.
"Now, this is the field. There are approximately fifty to eighty hostile units down there so keep on your toes." No one seemed to upset with the news so I guessed they were used to this degree of difficulty. "Usually communication is handled through Jean, but since our newest member is somewhat prone to fits under psychic probing, Hank has rustled up some cochlear radios, we only have three at the moment so Joseph, Kurt and Scott get them." The choices were logical save one.
"Why Kurt?" Kurt gave me a hurt look. "No offence meant matey, I'm just curious as to why he chose you."
"I chose the Elf because his teleportation power makes him an excellent scout, if the situation arose you would need to hear the information as quickly as everyone else gets it." Logan explained. "I figured you would've known that, considerin' your background." He added.
"Well considerin' I don't have any bloody clue about my background I suppose it's to be expected." I showed no emotion as I replied, but inside my anger began to rise. Xavier entered the room and got my attention, I walked over "Yes, sir?"
"Don't be to harsh on the X-men if they let little snippets of your past blurt out inadvertently, it isn't their fault and your anger will not help matters." I was stunned, was he actually reading me?
"How could you tell, were you able to read my emotions?" I asked. He shook his head.
"You may be able to keep your emotions out of your voice but your physical shape starts to change when you're angry." He answered. He held up a folder and pressed it into my hands. "Besides I am giving you your military record, I'm hoping that will keep you satisfied for the moment." I opened the folder and read the document quickly. I was dead according to the paper but I felt very much alive, apparently the British government's filing skills had down graded slightly.
"Thank you sir." I rejoined the X-men and looked Wolverine in the eye. "I apologize sir, I shouldn't have talked back to you." I felt like saluting but managed to keep it under control. Logan nodded and carried on with the briefing.
"You have five minutes, about the time the elevator will take to descend, until the exercise starts, so let me first say this: good luck." We entered the lift and huddled around Scott to listen to his plan.
*
*
Meanwhile, somewhere in downtown New York two men were sitting in a darkened room watching satellite and television feeds of the institute.
"Is the receptor up and running yet?" the first man asked in a cultured English accent. The second man hit a few buttons on the keyboard in front of him.
"There's still a few bugs, we're able to hear the host's voice but everything else is incoherent." He said in a Brooklyn accent. He passed the first a piece of printout. "This is a transcript of a conversation he had a few seconds ago." He explained as the first man scanned the page:
Host: "So that's the plan?" {Faint humming in background [possibilities: Elevator/ Generator ]}
Voice 1: "Ye Interruption lan ike it?" {Audio signature: Male adolescent, 90% 17-19yrs}
Host: "It's a crappy plan, we'll be tagged in seconds."
Voice 1: "Oh rea nd I su ose y ca ter plan?" {Audio Tracking detects 75.7% possible hostility}
Host: "Yeah, I scout ahead and pinpoint any hostiles then you all follow, then use Kurt, Kitty and I to bypass any obstructions in safe zones." {Audio Tracking detects 75.7% possible hostility [Query: Directed towards voice 1?]}
Voice 2: Sfe zes?" {Audio signature: Female Pre-adolescent [89% 13-15yrs]}
Host: "Yeah, ditches, buildings. Anything that provides cover."
Voice 1: "Fohe ti ieng we'll sik t y pla." {Audio level of Elevator/Generator increased by 27% [Explanation: Machine preparing to halt function.]}
Host: "Fine, have it your way, sir." {Audio tracking detects 100% certainty of sarcasm}
The first placed the transcript into the fax machine and sent it to his office, while the second person tapped the original as it was dropped into the out tray.
"As you can see, it's heavily distorted."
"Can you tell why?"
"We believe so sir." He punched a few keys on the console again; a revolving wire frame body appeared on a large screen behind them, First turned to watch. "We initiated a full body diagnostic and this is what we found in the brain." The screen model changed into a wire model with white and red areas with a black spot in the frontal lobe. "White means overactive, red means nominal activity, and black means inactive." First looked blankly at second.
"Which means?"
"You see the two white areas either side of the crease? That's where his mutant ability is controlled; they are overactive because our receptors are situated there." He pointed to the white areas as he spoke, first pointed to the dark patch.
"And this?" Second coughed nervously.
"It seems to be a side affect of the memory patch he was put through, the memories we gave him and his memories of the same time frames are going to war. 'Memory Conflict', I think it's called."
"So, what can he remember?"
"Not one thing, his whole memory has blanked out. Though his subconscious might have kept impressions of those memories, we can't tell yet. I'll have the Psyche doctors take a look, possibly some of our brain experts as well as our mutant experts too."
"Get back to me when you have more."
"Yes sir."
*
*
The lift doors opened and we cautiously stepped out into the forest. I could see a trapezoidal building in the distance.
"Okay people, form up." Everyone formed around Jean Grey on Cyclops' command, everyone except me that is. This plan of Cyclops' called for me to run interference. Stupid plan, I thought to myself for the twelfth time that particular second. What Cyclops had planned was a basic 'fishing' trap; while everyone walked under Jeans telekinetic shield safe as houses I'd be up front taking fire from anything that could be up ahead. "Running interference," he'd called it. More like suicide if you ask me. I got the thumbs up from Cyclops meaning they were ready. I moved to the nearest tree and looked around, nothing.
"Good luck Joseph." I heard Kurt through the cochlear radio, he sounded as if he was whispering. I turned in time to see Cyclops giving him a cold stare, Jean didn't seem too happy either. I gave them a thumbs-up and moved to another tree, I could see the team in their various uniforms through the thick bushes, I blended in as I still wore my sweat-stained combat fatigues. With nothing still insight I moved to a rocky outcrop. I ducked as I heard a whirring sound and crawled to the outcrop. I leaned back against a boulder set there as I activated the cochlear radio in my ear.
"Yo, One-eye…"
"Cyclops."
"Yeah whatever. Is there anything behind particular colour schemes?" I asked as I looked cautiously over the boulder, seeing three CYPHERs, Gun platforms attached to helicopter rotors, one was red and the other two were blue. They had cameras attached to the barrels of their weapons.
"Red is a one hit kill, green is two and blue is three." One-eye answered.
"For us or for them?"
"Us, we only have to tag them once."
"Well I've got three helo-guns up here, get everyone to move on my signal."
"Move to where?" asked Kurt.
"Two points east of your current position is a thick area of low trees, it should be easy to run through there."
"Copy."
"Now wait a second, I'm in charge here," Cyclops chimed in. I sighed inwardly.
I seemed to have a natural flair for stealth tactics; I picked up a small rock and stood up. I quickly aimed and threw it at the red CYPHER. I moved quickly running as fast as I could west, away from the others.
"Go now."
"Ja."
"Wait a seco…" I cut the feed I sprinted to the shaft of light ahead of me, the two helo-guns buzzing angrily behind me, shooting when they got a lock on my dodging form. I was so busy with the CYPHERs behind me that I almost fell into the crevasse ahead of me. I jumped it at the last second and landed on the other side. I lost my footing and fell. I realised that I had been moving up hill as I could see the team crashing through the forest.
"Cyclops, stay where you are, you've got several of the little buggers on your tail."
"Then why are we staying still genius?" He replied, they were still moving, the guns shooting at them.
"All they see is the movement of the foliage, if you don't move they can't see you."
"Oh, got it." The crashing stopped and the CYPHERs veered off, towards me. Laser fire erupted from my right; one bolt hit my left hand causing pain to ripple up my arm.
"Damn." I swore to myself and ran again, taking the steepest part of the hill. I found it hard to keep my balance on the way down and tumbled the last few feet Definitely not built for fast speeds over great distances. I picked myself up of the ground, I could hear battle noises over where the team was, moving slowly north, apparently Jean's shield was holding. I took stock of my surroundings and spied a small shack in the clearing ahead, I hiked towards it, picking up speed as I reached the clearing, the CYPHERs would have the advantage and I had no intention of…
BOOOM!!
The ground near me exploded and I was sent flying, I landed by the shack. I got up, kicked the door open and pulled myself inside. Something stung my arm on the way in. I leaned on the door to close it.
"What the hell was that?" I heard Kurt shout painfully into my ear.
"Dunno." I replied, standing up to get a good view out the window. "But I've been tagged twice and my left hand just fell asleep." I caught movement at the edge of the clearing.
"Right, we're coming to get you." A glint of shimmering light diverted my attention to look out the window behind me out onto the plain, what I saw made my blood run cold. I opened the feed.
"Do not, I repeat, do not do that. On the other side of this shack there's a very big automated cannon and it is currently trained in your direction. Get towards the goal, I'll sort myself out." I looked around the shack for any thing useful; to my surprise I uncovered a handgun. My handgun. With two extra clips.
"Can't do that Joseph."
"For Christ's sake listen to me…Aghhh!" A high screech erupted from the radio. "Goddamned, jumped up, stubborn sonova…"
"Jo?" Rogue's voice stopped me.
"Where's One-eye got to?"
"And it's nice to hear from you too." She said lightly "Scott's getting ready to sprint over to you."
"Stop him; he'll be shot up if he tries. Kurt? Could you get across to me?"
"It would take maybe two or three 'ports Joseph."
"Don't worry about it then." I quickly checked the pistol over and watched the cannon. It spun and pointed towards where the team were, I saw my chance and took it. I set myself and dived through the window, hitting the ground and rolling back to my feet. I sprinted for the cannon, which had begun to target me. A crashing from the bushes behind me distracted the cannon long enough for me to get inside it's firing arc. I produced my black claws and slashed a hydraulic pipe, the cannon stopped moving and powered down. I began to head for the bushes when someone grabbed me from behind and lifted me up by my fatigue shirt unceremoniously. I saw Cyclops' face up close.
"I'm in charge here so stop telling me what I should or shouldn't do, from minute one you've been trying to take control so stop it, you're here to take orders not give them got it?" Before I could answer a familiar buzzing sound came from around us, Cyclops looked away and blasted a CYPHER behind me. I raised my gun at a CYPHER and pulled the trigger, clipping it. I dodged left as it returned fire, another shot took it down. The few CYPHERS were dispatched within seconds, I had to admit Cyclops and I worked well together. I was about to tell him this when I caught movement on the horizon.
"Hey Scott, I mean Cyclops, are you seeing what I'm seeing?" He turned to see what I was looking at. Shock rippled across his face but was gone just as quickly.
"Run." I didn't need telling twice, we both turned and sprinted towards the others as fast as we could. The area was deserted as we crashed through the bushes.
"I don't suppose they're gonna jump out of the bushes yelling boo?" It was a weak joke but I was out of breath and bloody tired with it.
"I sent them on ahead, they should be close to the objective now." I activated the radio.
"Rogue, Kurt. How are you doing?" Only white noise answered, I switched the radio off and turned to Cyclops, "They aren't answering." He nodded.
"Rogue's down and Kurt's is busted, they're in trouble." I forced myself off the tree I'd been leaning against.
"Then let's go." Cyclops pointed behind him to the oncoming mass of opponents, finally becoming more than dust on the horizon.
"We'll have to go through them, the team circled the clearing." I unsheathed my claws once again and moved to the edge of the clearing.
"On your word then." I bent slightly to give myself better grip, Cyclops stood beside me to get better aim.
"See you on the other side Greerson. Go!" I pushed off with my legs, straight toward the enemy with Cyclops' red blasts darting around me, exhilaration coursed through my very being. The Beast had too much free time on his hands, I could see the wielding arcs where extra armour had been grafted on just before I bulldozed the front line of insect-like droids. I ran through the mass of steel as fast as I could, fighting the impulse to stay and take down every one of them.
"Joseph? Are you zhere? We kinda need you and Cyclops here quickly." I buried my claws into a droid's head and twisted to dodge the fire from its back mounted cannon.
"What's your situation Nightcrawler?" I could hear laser fire on the other end.
"Jean and Rogue are down, but we've managed to reach ze objective. We're holding out but we need you two here as soon as possible." I pulled my claws out and ran the length of the droid's spine to avoid another attack. I hit the ground running. Thankfully these droids were about waist height, perfect to jump over, which I did.
"I'm taking the direct route and Cyclops is taking the scenic, we'll be there A.S.A.P."
"Could you make it a bit sooner?" he asked dryly before cutting off. I left the herd and sprinted the rest of the clearing, leaving the walking battle tanks to Cyclops. I could still hear him shooting as he ran through the trees.
The objective was a large stone trapezoidal building; it looked like some kind of temple. It was situated in a low courtyard of marble dug into the earth, which was filled with CYPHERS and those droids trying to all fit into a corridor that would hardly fit two people let alone two droids. I heard footsteps behind and pulled out the pistol, I raised it and began to squeeze the trigger, stopping as Cyclops' face registered in my mind. He averted the barrel from his face.
"You never can tell what else Beast has worked up can you?" He asked knowingly.
"I thought he was a chemistry teacher," I said to him
"Everyone has their hobbies." He replied. I turned back to the temple and lowered down onto my haunches.
"How many do you think are down there?" Cyclops kneeled down beside me.
"Enough to stop a frontal assault I'd bet." I scanned the building, noting three other possible entrances: Two second floor windows and a skylight.
"How are you at wall climbing?" I asked.
"I'm not Spider-Man but I'm pretty good. Why?" I simply pointed at the skylight. "And you'll be doing what?" He asked abruptly.
"My job," I replied. "Running interference."
*
*
It took moments to finalise the plan and implement it. I had circled around and set up opposite my original position, the hill on this side was higher, almost to the temple roof.
"Kurt, you still there mate?" I asked into the now reactivated radio.
"Ja Joseph, we are," came the reply.
"Good. I'm going to distract their attention. I'll need you to hit them with everything you have left when they have their backs turned to you okay?"
"Okay, ready when you are." I stood up and took aim at a droid that was blocking the entrance to the goal. I pulled the trigger. The report of the shot was loud, so loud the army turned as one, the bullet pinged of the now turning droid and hit a helo-gun which took two others with it as it lost balance and careened into the side of the temple. I waved my hands towards Cyclops, who got the signal and sprinted for the far side of the temple. The CYPHERS quickly gained the height and were soon above me, they were so close together I didn't bother to aim. I pulled the trigger seven more times before the clip was dry, I quickly changed the magazine for a new one, pulling back the slide as the first droid poked it's head out over the edge of the cliff. I fired twice and raised the gun upwards at the CYPHERS and once again emptied the clip. I reloaded once again and turned and ran for the goal, I jumped the gap from the hill to the roof as Cyclops was jumping feet first into the hole. I dove through head first without stopping. I twisted around in mid air to get my feet under me. I rolled as I landed, coming to a stop in front of Rogue who was beginning to come round. The scenery melted around us back into the way the danger room had appeared last night, the far door ahead of us opened and Logan and the Professor entered.
"All in all I would say that was a good exercise, with a few buts: First of all, Scott, you unnecessarily divided your forces. Also, going alone to rescue a team-mate was reckless; there will be times when you will have to trust the strand member's abilities. And one more thing, I think you dismissed Joseph's plan too quickly, it was a safer, more expedient way of getting through." He said disapprovingly "And you Joseph," He added turning to me, "You need to learn to respect the chain of command, your input was valid but you should give them to the team leader, not order the rest of the team, understand?"
"Yes sir," I said apologetically.
"Sorry Professor," said Scott. Logan stepped up next to Xavier.
"It seems to me that what we have here is a personality conflict." I said nothing, as did Scott. Logan continued, "It's apparent you both don't like each other but you both are natural leaders: Headstrong and self confident. Thankfully you can leave you personal B.S. off the battle field when the crap hits the fan, but you need to be keeping it down completely when on the field, training or otherwise. The former problem is one we may not be able to rectify easily, I'd suggest that we either split the group in two or rotate who…Joseph? You disagree?" I had cut him off with a shake of my head.
"Wouldn't work Wolverine."
"Which one? The latter or the former?" He asked.
"Both."
"Reasons."
"What you have here is a team I presume has been working together for some time." I gestured to the X-men around me. "If you split this team up then you destroy all the hard work you put in to making it into a team in the first place. And if you swap leaders all the time it will just confuse the team with two different command styles. Besides, no one here trusts me enough to lead, you don't even trust me enough to put me in with the new recruits." No one disagreed. "I see two choices, either I learn to take Cyclops' orders or I don't join the team." I shrugged and walked towards the door. "And frankly I'd prefer to go it alone, trust doesn't come easily to me either."
