Chapter 4 Dealing with Tragedy

There were very few things in the world that scared Art Bantham. He had grown up on the streets, spending day after day running from what he thought was an anti-mutant organization. He had done time in jail for drug dealing. He had even stared down the barrel of quite a few guns. None of that scared him.

Few people had ever seen Wolverine in a Berserker rage, and even fewer ever lived to tell about it. Here he was staring down Wolverine, who was rushing right at him. If he was smart, he'd move. He was smart, and he would've moved, except for the fact that fear had rendered him paralyzed. He witnessed what he thought was the last moment of his life as Wolverine leapt through the air at him.

All of a sudden, time stopped. Or so he thought.

"Ashlyn, Angelo, do something! I can't hold him like this forever! He's struggling fiercely!"

Art realized Ryan was holding Wolverine telekinetically. And it was putting a heck of a strain on him to do it.

Through the broken window snaked the vines from outside. Ashlyn directed the vines over to where Wolverine was floating in the air. Ryan had dropped to a knee under the strain of holding him up, but he concentrated hard enough to lower Wolverine into the vines. They wrapped him up tight enough that he couldn't use his claws to tear out.

Art never saw it coming.

All of a sudden, he felt exquisite pain in his back as the claws raked across it. He fell to the floor and Angelo, Ashlyn, and Ryan saw Sabertooth standing where Art had been standing only as second sooner.

Jeska shrieked again from her corner. This only drew Sabertooth's attention her direction. Jeska dove into the unlit fireplace, and started climbing up the chimney. Sabertooth ignored her and turned his attention to the member of the team that was standing behind him and to the right. He lunged at him.

Angelo sprung into the air and vaulted over his head kicking him in the back on his way down. Sabertooth slid on the ground toward the window where Ashlyn already had vines coming in to wrap him up. Only this time, the person she was wrapping could move. Ryan was too busy rushing to check on Art to provide any help.

Sabertooth got to his feet and started thrashing wildly. Ripping vines apart. Ashlyn shrieked and grabbed her head and collapsed to the floor. Once the vines stopped trying to wrap around him, Sabertooth turned to Angelo again and started running at him.

"Ah, crap!" Angelo said and he braced himself to spring again when Sabertooth got close enough.

All of a sudden Sabertooth roared out and grabbed his head and collapsed face first into the hard wood floor.

Confused, Angelo looked around and saw ShiKay and Wolf-pup standing in the door to the foyer. Tears were streaking down Wolf-pup's face and she had her palm pointed toward Sabertooth's now unconscious body.

"What did you do, chica?" Angelo said over the thumping sounds coming from the encased Wolverine.

"I just yelled really loud in his head with my power. I guess he's more animal than man." She said through the tears.

There was a ripping sound and a loud growl as Wolverine ripped free of his casing. He sprung to his feet and sniffed the air. He turned toward the fallen Sabertooth.

All of a sudden there was a voice in his head. "Calm down, Wolverine, please. We are friends."

Wolverine retracted his claws with a SNIKT! And grabbed his head as he dropped to one knee. "Jean?" he said confused.

"No, not Jean." Wolf-pup said telepathically, while looking confused at ShiKay, who had no clue what was going on. "But a friend nonetheless."

Wolverine looked up at Wolf-pup and snarled at her. "Get..Out.Of my..HEAD!!" he roared as he sprang through the air at her.

There was a loud crash as Samson came crashing through the window, landing on Wolverine. Snarling, the mountain lion and Wolverine rolled across the floor until they hit a recliner and were separated.

"THAT'S ENOUGH!" Wolf-pup yelled causing the mountain lion to cower away. This last shock proved too much for Wolverine, who blacked out and hit the floor.

As Black pulled up the driveway, he knew immediately something was wrong. The front windows were all busted out and that had to be a sign of trouble. He prayed that he wasn't too late. Immediately, he was on the phone with Nick Fury of S.H.I.E.L.D., letting him know that he needed back- up to capture Sabertooth.

Black bolted through the door and found the living room in shambles. When he saw Dr. Franks' lifeless body, he feared the worst. He pulled out his Glock that he carried everywhere with him, wondering if it would even do any good if he ran into Sabertooth. He then rushed to the nearest intercom speaker and punched the speaker button.

"Kids, if you're alive, please come out." He said frantically in the PA system. After a few moments, a reply came back to him.

"In the infirmary, Mr. Black." It was Xi's voice.

Black rushed for the stairs and ran down to the infirmary where a black creature that looked like a shadow..no, that was Jeska..was working on trying to stabilize somebody. Black's heart sank as he got close enough to realize that it was Art.

Black put his hand up to his mouth in a look of sadness, and turned away as his eyes began to water up. That was when he noticed the bodies of Wolverine and Sabertooth slumped in the corner. His look quickly changed from a look of sadness to a look of shock as he turned back to the other students.

"H-H-How?" He started to phrase an entire question, but instead turned and rushed out of the infirmary and across the hall to his office. He pulled out two mutant inhibitor collars from the small armory he kept there.

Returning to the infirmary he clamped the collars on Sabertooth and Wolverine.

"What are you doing?" Angelo asked coming up behind Black. Black jumped at the sound of his voice.

"These collars will negate both of their healing factors. Hopefully that will keep them out long enough for S.H.I.E.L.D. to get here. What happened to Art?" He said as he crossed over to the bed where his student lay.

"'tooth got him pretty bad." Xi said.

"I have a theory that if he could shift into something..anything.and shift back, his wounds would be gone and he'd be fine."

"But." Black encouraged when she didn't continue.

"But he's got to be conscious to shift."

Soot, thought Black to himself, she's covered in soot. He made a mental note to ask her about what had happened to her later.

Their first battle and it had to be against two (not one, but TWO) of the biggest and best killers in the world. And now he may have lost one of his students. Black was starting to have doubts about this whole idea. He wondered how Xavier dealt with these types of situations.

S.H.I.E.L.D. had shown up not long after Black left the infirmary. They had given up Sabertooth to S.H.I.E.L.D., who put him into an adamantium cage and hauled him off.

Once Sabertooth was gone, Black had removed the inhibitor collar from Wolverine and allowed Jeska to hook him up and try to let him stabilize.

It hadn't taken long and now Black and all the kids, except for Art, waved goodbye to Wolverine as he left to go back to New York.

Jeska had finally gotten Art to stabilize. However, he remained in a deep coma. Jeska had left to clean up the soot that covered her body.

Black had called the authorities and they had come and picked up Dr. Franks' body. Black and all the kids had been thoroughly questioned, and after the authorities had been given the same story from all the people, they left satisfied.

Black stayed with Art while Jeska got some sleep. For the first time in a week, he was questioning whether he was doing the right thing. The kids had done pretty well against both Wolverine and Sabertooth. But the thought occurred to him that both Wolverine and Sabertooth had been fighting each other for over two days straight. Neither man was even fighting at 50% by the time they had reached the mansion. And now one of his students could very well be dead because of the situation.

The noise of the door caught his attention. He looked up to see Jeska walking through the door.

"Go get some rest." She said. "I can handle it."

"Alright. Be careful, though, because all the kids are in a pretty shook up state. They've all been down here at least once. Angelo's been down here even more than everyone else combined. I think he blames himself." Black said as he exited the room.

"The door is always open for you too, you know." Jeska said stopping Black at the door.

"Thank you." And the door slid shut behind him.