Monday morning was fairly quiet. Marie taught piano to a few students in the morning, and art to a group of six mutants between the ages of 12 and 16. In the afternoon, she met Logan outside near the basketball court to teach a group of eight students the Mutation skills class. They were divided into two teams, Marie head of one and Logan head of the other. Logan had set up two identical but very complex obstacle courses that morning. Both teams would race each other; the winning team would have the afternoon off. The losing team would stay and participate in a group discussion of how their mutations could have been better put to use. The teams were given 10 minutes to develop a strategy. Logan and Marie stepped back from the teams allowing the students the freedom to learn from each other without depending on their instructors.

"So kid, how was your flying lesson with one-eye?"

Marie smiled, she knew it was her last lesson, she was ready. "It went well."

"You sure? You came back really late; I was kinda wondering if you crashed into something and gave Scooter a heart attack for denting his baby."

"Nope. It went well." She paused and then added quietly, "I learned more than I thought I would." Logan's left eyebrow raised.

They continued to watch the children compete against each other through the two identical obstacle courses. Both teams succeeded beautifully, some children used their skills to modify the course for themselves or for others, while some simply used their skills to speed things up and improve their accuracy. Both teams came out tied. After the hooting and hollering ceased, the children then turned to their leaders.

Ella was one of the youngest and probably boldest children at Xavier's. "Maybe Rogue should race Wolverine to settle the tie for us?" she piped up. The suggestion elicited cheers from both teams, leaving little room for the two instructors to back out.

"I don't think that we'll have time for that. Besides," he smirked "it would hardly be a fair match."

Marie was hardly one to back down from a challenge. To kick the ass of the man who had too long called her a kid would be a refreshing experience.

"Ah think that is ah fine way to determine the winning team!"

"Whatcha gonna do? Touch the ropes and gain a super climbing ability?!" Logan's eyebrow was characteristically raised by this point.

"Logan, you may be able to slice and dice the ropes and walk right through like a pussy, but some of us succeed with hard work, sweat and, hmmm...what's it called again? Oh yeah...skill!"

Logan just grunted in response. Truth be told, her found her confidence extremely attractive. She was clearly a woman unlike any other he had ever known.

Ella held both arms in the air as the two X-men took their starting positions. "Ready....Set....GO!"

Surrounded in flames, Marie had no idea where to go. The rope wall in front of her was completely engulfed in fire. Behind her, she could feel flames licking at her ankles. Smoke was filing her lungs and blackness closed in around her as she collapsed.

She was barely breathing when he sliced through the red hot ropes and scooped up her limp body. The burning ropes had created lines of temporary, yet extremely painful, blisters across his skin. He didn't care; he had to get to Marie.

It had all happened so fast. For the first part of the race they had been neck and neck.

"C'mon Logan, is that really the best you can do?"

"Just tryin' to give ya a head start kid!"

They swam across the small pond, and Marie took the lead. Apparently adamantium was surprisingly heavy in water, and Marie's long graceful limbs seemed to just slice the water like it was soft butter. The next part of the course involved running 200 feet across the lawn and then scaling a large rope wall. When Logan had finally taken the lead by slicing through his own rope obstacle, he heard Marie's painful scream. He whipped around to see where she should have been scaling her own rope wall, and instead saw her jump backwards away from the ropes.

The ropes themselves were smoking and glowing red shortly before they burst into orange and blue flames. The flames spread to the ground with lightning speed and created a circle of fire nearly 10 feet high surrounding Marie. Logan could no longer see her behind the flames. Once again, Logan felt an intense sense of helplessness he only experienced once before during the Statue of Liberty incident. He pictured Marie's cold limp body in his arms as he desperately tried to revive her on that dreadful night.

Without realizing he was screaming out loud, Logan charged in to the fire. He had drawn his claws, as if by slicing at the wall of flames, he could kill the fire that was trying to consume his Marie. He scooped up her lifeless body and wrapped his arms around as much of her as he could, paying no mind to any exposed skin. He leapt out of the wall of flames.

Most of the children, who were watching the entire event unfold, were now either yelling or crying. Xavier had already sensed the growing anxiety, and now sheer panic, coming from the courtyard and knew something was terribly wrong. Logan rushed Marie into the Mansion and down to the Med Lab. Hank was already waiting for their arrival. Bobby had also already been deployed to extinguish the fire, followed closely by Ororo who brought the children back inside and calmed them.

With all the commotion, no one even saw the man left standing in the shadow of a tree, smugly surveying the smoldering remains of the obstacle course.