Lucky Me

Chapter 052


"Welcome to the next installment of 'How to Lose a Team of Teenagers in One Week'!" Bobby-Jerk announced as we (the doomed teenagers) shuffled into the room, heads hung like kids who just got caught with our hands caught in the cookie jar. D-M even seemed to be dreading this, and she's usually the 'happy go lucky' girl (except for the two days in the woods, that was weird).

"What type of punishment are you going to make us go through just to get us out of the mansion?" Chris asked, who had apparently secured himself a pair of sunglasses.

Storm was the one to talk this time, "For the next twenty-four hours, the trainees and the senior staff will be mixed and split into groups of four." At least we stood a chance with the seniors on our side….maybe. "Each team will be lead by one of you," she gestured toward us. My eyes bugged out again as my jaw went slack. What were they thinking putting us in charge of powerful people? I thought they were sniffing something when they put me in charge of my group, now they wanted to give us the power to destroy a small nation? To me? To Chris?

Oh man, to Daisy-Mae? For some reason I could see her with a crown of wildflowers and someone strumming a guitar while singing 'Let's Give Peace a Chance' or some other hippie anti-war tune.

"If we're in charge, does that mean we can sit on our butts in the mansion and all of you go running around the woods like Tarzan knock offs?" Chris asked, and for the most part everyone just rolled their eyes.

Apparently choosing to ignore his snide remark, Storm continued by picking up a clip board and reading off our fate.

"The first group is, Blyt with Phoenix, Cyclops, and Nightcrawler." Why didn't they just kill me? Honestly, wasn't there some law against cruel and unusual punishment?

"Keeping it all in the family there, Scott?" I was going to hyperventilate, kill Bobby-Jerk, and hyperventilate.

"I have yet to be proven to be related to the Summers," Nightcrawler pointed out.

"Oh, come on, you're an X-Man, you have to be related to a Summers, it's some sort of qualification," Bobby-Jerk shot back. Scott's visor started to glow bright, as if he was powering up to shoot someone, just like it did when he warned me at the lake.

"Next team: Shockwav, Iceman, Husk, and Angel."

"Oh man!" Chris complained (didn't see that one coming, sheesh). "Do I have to get stuck with that guy?"

Iceman, for his part, actually looked sorta in a small way hurt. Not that I was concerned or anything, why would I be? They could fry/freeze themselves for all I cared, really!

"Third team consists of Kia, Cannonball, Northstar, and Wolverine."

I choked on my air. The country bumpkin got put in charge of Mr. Claws? Oh-this was not going to be pretty. But suddenly the image of Wolverine skipping through the woods with that danged flower crown on his head (holding hands with D-M who was wearing a matching crown) singing anti-violent songs filled my mind and I started to hit my forehead with the palm of my hand.

"Mental problems?" D-M asked, sounding concerned.

"Just pictures," I whispered between trying not to laugh and not to die from lack of oxygen. I heard Jean start to laugh softly in the corner and I chose to wisely not to look toward my 'parents'.

Storm cleared her throat, "Fourth, is Adam, Stacey, myself, and Gambit." …no mental picture or cute comment for that group, really, I was drawing a blank.

"Fifth and final group is Flex, Rogue, Bishop, and Beast. All the other X-Men who are not participating will be here for the nightly patrols and monitor duties." What! Adrian was going to get all the muscle? Flying muscle, 'bounding' muscle, and the big mountain of muscle? Where's the fairness?

Then again, I did have the only telepath who was going to be out there. Maybe I could just get her to make them all act like two-year-olds or something. Maybe make them believe they were Superman and our team was Kryptonite robots or something-oh sure, it might sound incredibly lame, but let me see what the other leaders were going to think up!


This wasn't a training exercise! This was babysitting! Cyclops was driving me absolutely batty (no pun intended since we were all still wearing the 'fashionable' utility belts), Phoenix wouldn't pay attention, and Nightcrawler had the annoying role of being moody and brooding.

"So what are we going to do in the morning?" Cyclops asked for the hundredth time. I gritted my teeth and shot him a 100% proof glare that would make whiskey stutter. "I was just asking because you are the one in charge."

Suddenly and for some unexplainable reason, I had a serious lust for Storm to strike him with lightening. Heck, I wished Chris was here so he could zap him.

"I. Don't. Know," I ground out. "What do you think we should do?"

I tried to remember that for some dumb reason all the X-Men in front of me were being annoying and nerve grating on purpose. I didn't understand why, but after four hours of whining, mouthing off, and repetitive, dumb questions I had the urge to tell them they could march into the lake.

So I have a temper! Just attribute it to Heather's blood in me.

"Okay, then let's start by analyzing them and seeing how we can beat them." Phoenix's attention snapped foreword as her elbow went none too gently into Cyclops ribcage. Apparently he thought I wasn't capable of thinking back to my 'leadership training' and wanted to try and help me. I was so thoroughly annoyed at this point I didn't want to win, I wanted to paint bull eyes on their foreheads and scream 'Shoot them!'.

"Wow," Oh no, Mr. Kurt was going into his sarcasm again. "Dude, you like, said something profound."

"Ha!" Phoenix said throwing her hands up in the air.

But just to keep them quiet I began to go through the people, I started with Miss Flying Muscles, (Rogue) I'd seen her get mad. When she got mad, beware!

"So, uh, Mi-" One raised eyebrow from Cyclops, "I mean Rogue, uh," I started to rub my temples. I had a headache coming on, my brain felt like it was encased in crystal and three brats (not to mention any names-Cyclops, Phoenix, and Nightcrawler) kept throwing rocks at it.

"What do we do about her?" Phoenix asked, popping her gum.

The rules of the game were simple: to prevent any lasting damage to the people or the landscape and to make sure 'bad blood' didn't flow between anyone (except the blood that was already there). We were told to 'take down' members of the opposing teams. Taking down meant that we had to take their teams X badges off (they were all different colors) and replace it with one of ours. If we failed to replace it with one of ours the person was then an enemy and prone to attack anyone at will.

"Hurt her."

"Oh yeah, hurt the indestructible woman, uh-huh, that'll work!" Mr. Kurt was having too much fun with whatever 'role' he was playing. This couldn't be their real field personalities, I'd been on the field with them (and got shot) and they never acted like this.

My teeth were going to break if I keep snapping them together as hard as I was.

"Then we'll make fun of her hair."

Nightcrawler couldn't keep in role with this, he cracked a humored smile. "Okay."

Scott made a grunted sort of snort that clearly said (in some type of noise language) that the idea lacked a certain something. Probably something like common sense. Heh, oh well, while I was in charge, I would do whatever the heck I pleased. Whether they listened to me or not would be another matter completely. They were supposed to listen; it didn't guarantee they would.

I spent another hour putting up with their behavior before I jumped to my feet (more like slowly and awkwardly climbed my way up, try having wings on your back see if you were very graceful) and began to leave.

"Where are you going?" Cyclops asked, and if I hadn't been so fed up with him, I would have sworn he went into leader mode again.

"Crazy," I answered and so what did genius do again when she got mad at Summers? Stomped off into the woods alone. I didn't really mind getting lost this time because I knew he would be lurking around with one of the teams and as my luck was running, I'd run into one of the other teams, get captured, and get into trouble.

Worse yet, get lectured to. There was nothing worse for a person with a very limited attention span than to be sat down and preached to for hours on end.

I sighed and felt the chill from where Storm didn't make the 'spring come early'. Either that or she knew I was alone and wanted to freeze me in place. Storm or Iceman. But, thinking sourly as I had been for a while, I had to admit that Bobby-Jerk would be more likely to try to freeze my uniform and have it shatter off of me, the pervert.

After nearly freezing to death the last time I went stomping off from the boathouse, I would like to pretend that I learned not to keep my head down while walking, but I didn't. And sure enough I got whacked by a branch. It wasn't hard enough to knock me down, but it was hard enough to hurt.

I rubbed the sore spot on my scalp and threatened the branch that if it tried anything like that again, it would be fire wood. Then I fussed at myself for talking to trees-and to myself outloud.

"Who's there?" Came a very male voice from somewhere to my left. I saw a small glow (fire) and walked closer to it, "Adrian?" I asked as the Canadian looked back at me just as surprised.

"Kookie?" Came Adam's voice from my left.

"Adam?" Came Chris' voice from my right, and from in front of me came a "Chris?"

After a moment, Adrian sighed, "Okay, I'll say it, Daisy?"

Now that we had all been reintroduced (sheesh) we managed a variation of "What are you doing here?" at the same time as the other four.

"Does this mean we have to start fighting each other?" Kia asked, with a firm 'no' from all of us she then went ahead to add, "If I stayed with those people much longer, I was going to go crazy!" D-M exclaimed and all of us quickly agreed.

"They are acting like a bunch of wimpy and whiny children," Adrian grunted.

Adam sighed and sat down by the fire. "Consider yourself lucky; when I left they were having an 'intellectual debate' over what really goes into hotdogs."

Chris didn't say anything. Chris didn't have to say anything, the power tendrils crackling off of his balled fists at the end of his crossed arms said volumes.

"They wouldn't shut up!" Kia continued. "They kept going on and on about the most boring and pointless stuff."

We all joined the other boys by the fire and stayed silent for a moment. Adam must have lost it. After about five minutes of silence a smile that should have cracked his face in half was followed by loud laughter.

"What's with you?" Chris muttered, didn't really sound like a question if you asked me, but no one did, so I was going to not answer it.

"Don't you get it?" He asked, removing his sunglasses letting his exotic eyes show, to wipe a finger under his eyes. They were almost blazing red with black slits, they were just so freakin' cool. "This is a game."

I rolled my eyes. No joke.

"Thanks for clearing that mystery up."

"No, you don't understand. They're acting like we do." Adam's observation was interesting. And the more I thought about it, the more sense it made. Phoenix was easily bored and hardly paid attention-I did that some…okay, okay, a lot. Cyclops was full of questions (mostly aggravating ones) but also had some brain in there that decided to surface occasionally and Nightcrawler…well, I was not sassy.

I wasn't! So I acted up a very minimum and sometimes stuck my foot in my mouth with my innocent comments.

This was Denialville. Enjoy the stay. I lived here.

"I do not talk incisively." D-M pouted, Chris snorted at her comment.

"So what do we do? Apparently this was a lesson on how we act with them, but we are still supposed to be in an exercise right?" Flex poked the fire with a stick. We really must be spending way too much time together we sighed at the same time.

"We can't go back and just say 'we get it'," Adam muttered, I should really tell him he needed to think about getting himself a codename. Although, when we were trying to get ones for ourselves he was called 'Scales' and 'Hulk Jr.', I even heard 'Green Hairless Beast Boy' but that wouldn't fit in the designated line on the form.

"I don't want to fight," Kia said, sticking out her tongue. Chris shot off his mouth and she picked up a stick and began to break it off and throw it at him. For his bad temper he just shot the projectiles (Scott leadership training includes big words for things that would ordinarily not be acquainted with big words, why? To make the leaders sound smart and to confuse dumber opponents…these were the only conclusions I could draw!) with his electricity 'bursts'.

"Dude, would you stop that? You're going to start a fire," Adrian grumbled. "What are we going to do."

I shook my head and sighed, I had been spending way too much time with the Cookie Gladiator.

"We go back to our teams and put up with them." They all looked over at me like I just suggested we go back and kiss each and every one of them. "It's their game. It's their rules. We are only players."

"Suckers is more like it." Chris was getting ready to fight with me when Adrian pointed out that it was for the best. We could just figure something out tomorrow. "Great you have a crush on her and suddenly anything she says is just what you were about to say."

If looks could kill—Chris would have been on the other side of the world by now.

"Get out of here, Sparks. Go terrorize those poor stupid people who have to be under your incompetent charge." Flex then got up and stalked away.

"Hey!" D-M cried, and then in a smaller voice added, "you forgot to put out the fire."

Adam and Kia agreed to take care of the fire and then head to their own teams. Me and Chris headed out in the same direction, his team being a bit south of my own. We had been actually talking and not bouncing insults off of each other (for once, maybe I should write down the date or something to mark this land mark occasion?).

"You realize you have a natural ability to repel females," I pointed out after he said something about my weight again (I said we were talking, I didn't say it was civil).

"Yeah, I know, if I could bottle it and sell it, I'd be rich." When I asked how, Chris (stubborn, thick headed, annoying, pain in the arse Chris) smiled for the first time that I could actually recall at me, "Can you imagine how many super stars would love to get rid of the adoring horde of estrogen that are called their fans? Brad Pitt, Johnny Depp…"

"Any one who met my grandmother…" I continued for him, and he did it again. Chris smiled. A friendly one! I thought I was going to have a heart attack and die from shock! On top of that, he had a nice smile.

Yes, hell just froze over.

"I guess, but after talking to her, she kind of does it for herself."

I heard a twig snap, and it wasn't from either of us. Chris didn't notice as he continued to talk, it was coming from behind and to the north. After about two more minutes of talking we said good-night and I watched as he disappeared into the woods. I waited patiently.

If it was someone from my team, I had no doubt they'd let me know it. If it was from someone else's team working by themselves without their supposed 'leader' then I was stuck standing here until they made another noise or attacked (I really wanted them to make another noise). Lastly, I thought it might be one of my other team members (my real team, not the 'pretend' ones, not that the X-Men couldn't mop the floor with us even while in intensive care, but oh heck, you get the point) who wanted to 'talk'. Well, then there was always the possibility it was just…

"You?"

He stepped right in front of me.

"Me."

Uh-oh. There were certain things you learned from your parents, one was to never mutter under your breath while they were still in earshot and two, when their voice could make a snowman go for a coat something was not okay.

In fact something will almost always be- ungood? I was making up words I was so nervous!

"Something wrong?" Third thing, never act innocent when the person with the iced over attitude and cold shoulder was giving you the 'eye' and not looking happy.

"Oh nothing much, just taking a leisurely stroll around the woods in the middle of the night, didn't mean to disturb your little rendezvous with Chris right under my nose." Oh great. He's jealous again and of Chris no less!

"It wasn't like a 'love chat' with Chris. Trust me, if you had heard any of the conversation, you'd know that." I looked him square in the eye hoping to get him off his high horse with a pathetic joke, "And if you add eavesdropping to spying then I think we have a problem in this-this-" What the heck could I call this thing between me and him?

"This what?" He seethed, his eyes never moving out of death glare stance. So when he got angry, I got angry. It's not empathy; it's just me getting annoyed and latching on to the first emotion that came my way. "This relationship?" I was about to respond when I felt something break my heart slightly when he started to laugh. "Is that what you would call this?" He motioned between me and him.

I was just a little too astonished to think clearly and then my brain got jabbed with a piece of the heart that got broken off as my common sense threw the pieces at my before mention brain. What did this riddle mean? It meant I got mad. Big surprise there!

"Relationship?" I asked like he had just said that we were nothing but figments of a disturbed person's imagination, and then I gave my own laugh, "Riiiight, like I would want a 'relationship' with you. You who only acknowledges my presence when no one else is around. You who flirt with every girl at the school. You who had all the audacity in the world to k-ki-" Dang it! Why did I have to lose it at the stupid 'k' word?

"Kiss you, Kerry. I kissed you." He said flatly, coldly. "And right now, seeing this part of you, I can't believe I did either. What's worse is I can't believe I wanted to in the first place!" Ouch. "But don't worry, Blyt, I won't be 'spying' on you anymore, or even be hanging around anymore, you can just go have all your fun with Chris." He spat out these words but I couldn't breathe.

"I-I-" Oh good, I wasn't the only one to pick up the Porky Pig Stuttering syndrome, "I'm out of here!" He waved me off and stomped into the woods, I ground my teeth together and stomped off toward my own camp.

When I got back, Jean was still up (Cyclops, the ever concerned, was snoring by a tree and Mr. Kurt was up in the tree with his fingers in his ears trying to block out the Fearless Snorer) and she didn't say a word to me as I plopped down by the fire, arms crossed and I felt my flesh already get the tingle of wanting to leave my body (my skin) to have the black skin 'shine' through.

"Something wrong?" Phoenix asked innocently. I didn't know if she was going to be sincere or not, but I sure as heck wasn't in the mood for a 'chat'.

"Why don't you just read my mind?" I replied. Jean got a hurt look in her eyes and I sighed. "Sorry."

"I couldn't even with your permission, at least not without hurting you. Your emotions triggered your 'defensive' barriers in your mind," she explained, "So do you want to talk about it?"

"No. I need sleep," with that I turned over and closed my eyes. I had my back to her because I could already feel my tears start to sting my eyes and slowly escape. I couldn't believe I was crying over that jerk! Like he said (or did I say it?) we weren't really anything to the other one.

But dang it! Why did it hurt?


The exercise wasn't something I would call 'prize winning', the fact that my original team seemed to work together better than they worked with their own separate 'teams' was almost funny. Almost. The game was supposed to start (ha ha) when we all woke up and found one another. But little did we know that our teams were tricked.

The 'trainees' had a traitor.

While we had all 'met up' by accident, it turned out not to be such an accident. It was part of their ploy.

When we got to fighting, the traitor and his team merely hung around the side lines laughing their heads off about something. It wasn't until we had beaten each other up to the point where grass was starting to taste not so bad that the traitor told us to check out our badges.

They weren't the colors we were assigned.

They were the traitor's team colors.

The jerk had won by tricking us! Apparently he must have told his team to switch the badges as we slept. Why Scott, the ever light sleeper, didn't wake up, or why Jean didn't 'sense' them, I didn't know but my behind was chewed up for this.

I wasn't paying attention as I sat in the War room having Scott go on and on about the carelessness of it all. How I could have been so irresponsible as to leave the team for one moment, "Hadn't the tracking exercise meant anything?" was what he kept saying. I was effectively soaking in what I chose to hear, when he walked in, whispered something to Scott and then without so much as a nasty glance over his shoulder, left the room.

Scott went on ranting and I found the one thing that stopped him from lecturing me into my thirties.

I started to tear up, and no matter what I did to try and stop it, the stupid tears started to slither down my cheeks.

In the middle of how a leader should always think of the mission and team first and not their own emotions (extreme annoyance included) he stuttered to a stop. I didn't even have the heart (which was trying to dig itself to China through the bottom of my feet) to look up at him when Scott finally started to go into Scott voice instead of Cyclops voice, "Kookie, I didn't mean to sound harsh, but I don't want you to mess up on the field if I know I could have taught you how to prevent it."

I still cried, that's when he was completely out of his league.

Crying females must be his stopping point because a few moments later the ever faithful Jean strolled in, took one look at me, and sighed.

"Maybe," I heard her whisper, I guessed for my own benefit (remember the telepathic link thingy? I knew this because I read the 'private' files) "it would be better if she had some time to recover. We can pick up the exercises on Friday."


Later that night, I had finally steeled myself to go out of my room and hunt down my best friends-Ben and Jerry. They were Rogue's and Storm's but I would gladly accept death if it meant a full stomach of sweet and sugary.

It was mind blowing the amount of 'illegal' sweets were here, after a while I guessed Scott just stopped fighting it. Could you blame him? He'd have over half the mansion ready to kill him if he ever really enforced that law. Professor didn't seem to mind the sugar as long as it kept people on manageable levels of tolerance. Although, on New Year I was pretty sure there was at least ten voices swearing off sweets…right before they cut the cake in the dining room.

I was lazily spooning in mouthfuls of my chosen 'friend' when something happened.

He had all the nerve in the world showing up in the same kitchen I was in (so the mansion only had one kitchen, still, he could have waited). I shot him a glare over my Ben and Jerry's carton and stuck another spoonful in my mouth. My pace went from 'lazy' to 'it's melting fast'.

"You're going to get sick if you keep eating all that chocolate," he pointed out quietly, which was very unlike him in general. But then again, dogs with their tails between their legs might be a bit-cautious?

"Thanks for your concern, but I'm an upset female therefore I'm immune to stomach aches at this moment," I shot before filling my mouth with more ice cream.

He picked up two empty ice cream cartons from the trash and with a half smile asked, "Which did you finish off? The fudge brownie swirl or the rocky road?"

"What do you mean or?"

"You ate them both?" His mouth almost hit the floor when I nodded curtly. "How can you eat so much of it?"

"I told you. Upset, female, hurt."

He shook his head and with a pitiful laugh sat down. "Guess you're mad at me."

"You got dirt in your ears?" I snapped, dropping my spoon into the half empty carton of Chocolate chip cookie dough. "I just told you -I'm hur-annoyed." So I lied, it wouldn't be the first time, and it wouldn't be the last.

"At me or life in general?" He asked, resting his head in the palm of his hand as his elbow sat on the table.

"Again with the 'or'," I retorted, I didn't want to see him at the moment. I really didn't want to bump into any male but that was kind of hard considering I still resided on the male half of the house. Grabbing my carton, I stood up and made a bee line for the door. If he thought for one moment I was going to just have a memory lapse like he did apparently, he was just oh so wrong! I was over the sadness, now I was just ticked.

Ticking Time bomb Kookie, coming to a store near you. I shook my head, I really had to stop watching so much TV.

I hit the door and was half way out of it when I gave a huge sigh.

"What?"

He was picking at the table.

"You said 'hurt' not 'annoyed'." He had the 'I'm-being-serious' tone, and I stuck my nose up in the air.

"So I use a wide variety of words," I choked out, oh no I was losing it because his eyes were showing his regret. Sniffling, I continued, "You—I won't force you to put up with them anymore." I finished lamely and took Ben and Jerry to my bedroom where they got dumped into the trashcan.

Guys suck.


Okay, so my opinion of guys went up slightly on Friday morning only to have it crash back down in flames.

When Cyclops was going through the motions of trying to get us 'hyped' up for the exercise, I was thinking that 'hmm, maybe not all guys suck' but then when he told us how we were going to be spending our weekend I changed my opinion again to 'all guys suck, just not all the time, but most of the time'. Yes, I was now on an anti-guy campaign.

I was trying to cover up being chopped apart by a guy I thought was a friend, and I thoughtwas going to be possibly more than that, so I was covering it rather successfully with anger.

"Could you repeat that?" Chris asked leaning forward as I sat in my chair, my own dark cloud of anger having returned to me and the words Cyclops said was drowned out by the thunder going on in my head. "Cause I knows I didn't hear you clearly."

"You will take down at least four of the senior staff," Cyclops repeated. Take down? What did he want us to do, take then down to New Orleans? What the heck was 'take down'?

"You want us," D-M chimed in, "to try and win over y'all?"

"Yes, that is precisely what we are saying," Storm clarified, for like the third time.

"Say something," Adam nudged my chair and I shot my eyes over to the 'leaders'.

"Why?" Genius strikes again! Watch out Dr. Hank you could be playing second fiddle to me in the near future!

"To test your team, like everything has done this week," Professor answered, "You have tracked, been tracked, and even been put under the pressure of handling more experienced staff members."

I wouldn't call it 'handling' so much as I would call it anger management, and I wouldn't say 'staff'. It made them sound like janitors but it wasn't me talking, thankfully.

"We are interested in seeing how well your team fairs against one of the senior staff when you have to fight to win, and not merely cripple or temporarily wound them."

"Why don't you just ask us to go to Yankee stadium and yell out 'I love the Mets'!" Chris screamed, jumping to his feet.

The ever raising eyebrow was called to duty as it raced up Professor's naked forehead.

"If you think that you and your team are not ready for such a challenge then we will by no means force you into doing anything against your will."

Excuse me; I had to go die laughing now. Everyone else took a sigh of relief and Chris sat back down.

"Of course," could have predicted those two words, "If you feel you cannot attempt this exercise you will remain in your current state as trainees and have to start the whole team over from the beginning."

"What if we accept, and aren't able to do it?" I asked, my rain cloud was chatting with my brain about the weather in Carbo, Mexico at this time, but that's okay I never really used that muscle anyway.

"Then you will remain trainees as you are now, but you will have a more intensive training schedule."

"More practice, earlier and later hours…" Scott was the devil. "Stricter diets."

The devil!


"At least we don't have to go into the woods again," D-M tried to cheer us up, but the black cloud that hung over my head had expanded and rained down on all of us. We had been sitting out on the porch in the back of the mansion for two hours.

The terms were explained to us after we got over the shock of knowing we were going up against the high and mighty X-Men. For one, they weren't allowed to attack first that was our privilege. Two, we had to capture one X-Man for one person on our team; five of us meant five of them. Three, we had until three on Sunday afternoon to complete this task, one minute past and we lost. Four, don't blow anything up. And lastly, if anything 'accidentally' blows up, it's coming out of our allowances.

"This is impossible!" Chris, Mr. Stater-of the-obvious. "They trained us, they're going to know our every move."

"We have to at least try," Traitor remarked, one warning glare and a nice deep growl from Adam in reptile form made Adrian shut up.

"Maybe if we attack at night," D-M offered. "They won't be able to see us, what do you think, Kookie?"

I didn't answer, I just shrugged.

"We could attack at night and then try to attack together as a team. Ya know, kind of overwhelm them?" Adam pitched out, I shrugged again when they looked at me.

My heart and mind was not in this. My body was here and I think I just got bit by a red ant, but I was not 'in' to this mission. I was sick of missions, so sick of 'games' and I didn't mean these exercises.

"So are you just not listening or is miming a new part of your powers?" Chris' eyebrows rose in sync. I sighed and got to my feet, refusing to meet the traitor's or Chris' eyes.

"What you two suggested sounds fine." It won't work, I knew that deep in my heart, but I didn't want to think about some way to make it work.

"So who do we take down?" Adrian asked quietly.

"Someone easy," D-M was quickly answered with a shout from the other two boys that these were the X-men and hello that none of them would be easy. That's how they got to be X-Men, was what she said.

And here I thought it had to do something with them being a mutant and looking good in skin-tight clothes.


It was late Friday night, that's when the team decided to try and earn our 'keep' (and lose our health might I add). I should have stopped everyone (hit them over the head and tied them to a tree or something) but instead I just let the creeping unconcern take over my logical brain (as if I really owned one).

Chris chose the target, and therefore, it was Bobby-Jerk.

Considering all the possible choices, Iceman didn't seem too bad of one, until they dreamed up the plan. The traitor of our group, Adrian, led the team and told them what to do. Since I was leader so when he asked 'does that sound all right?' I would shrug and nod my consent.

I had been learning leadership and strategy from Scott for a while during and I could promise that he was an excellent strategist. And considering I didn't even know what a strategist was before I took lessons from this guy, it said a lot. The point of my little confession? I was being taught to pick apart plans and see where they would come up short.

And Flex's plan was shorter than a blade of grass and ten times as flimsy. But I went along with it anyway, just to make the team happy.

When it was around eight or nine (at night), I waited in the trees like I was supposed to, and when I saw IceJerk making his rounds on the grounds, I reported it to Adam. My job was simple, tell them when Bobby-Jerk was on his way, and then if anyone else showed up, I would warn them about that, too.

I was the only lookout and facing only one direction. You see the problem? All the other directions weren't covered. In fact, they were left wide open. From the boathouse to the front gates, none of it was being watched. Did I say anything? Nope.

Of course I could have been setting myself up for suicide by refusing to shout, "This plan really stinks!" So I was just hanging out in the tree like a good little blackbird when the fighting started. I was just going to sit there, do nothing (like I was told to do and like I personally preferred to do) when that dumb nagging voice crept into my mind and poked me in the behind to make me fly over there.

"Flex?" I tapped my comm. link and didn't get a response. I was above the tree line so when I saw Chris running through the woods I swooped (never thought I'd be able to say that about me!) down and stopped in front of him. "What's going on?"

"That dumb glory hog is going to get us all in trouble!" Shockwav's voice was icy. He wasn't just mad, he was livid. "The idiot attacked Iceman by himself to take all the glory for himself!"

"Where's Kia? Where's Adam?"

"Iced."

I felt his anger, or was it because I got mad? I didn't know, but I left Chris and took off toward where they were to ambush the Ice-block-head-boy. By the time I fought the forest and made it to the clearing, Flex was standing triumphantly over a knocked out Bobby-Jerk. Two or three of the senior staff was there in a matter of seconds.

Dr. Hank went to Bobby-Jerk's side and checked him out, apparently Flex hit him in a very vital spot at the base of his skull.

What did I do? Just stood there, my dumb eyes filling up with dumb tears. I never thought I'd see him in this state.

Adrian smugly told me that I was too late and to "Not take credit for any of his hard work." Although he said it with a soft smile, it was his eyes that irritated me. They were so full of himself that is was no wonder they were brown!

And Bobby-Jerk moaned out something about flying forks and blue cats.

"Report to the Professor," Cyclops told us without so much as a glance in any ones but Bobby-Jerk's direction.


Well, there I sat back in the Professor's office.

I wasn't being yelled at or even being paid attention to. Actually I was in the waiting area outside the Professor's office. Flex was in the office at this moment, behind closed doors.

My stupor was gone and my mind was finally clear enough to realize just how dumb I was.

I should have stopped them. Should have been more of the ridiculous leader they wanted me to be. After all, I was the one being trained, not Adrian or any of the others. Who paid for it? Someone who wasn't even part of my team, Bobby-Jerk. I didn't know HOW they got him out of ice form, but they did and he was lying down in the sick bay now with bandages wrapped tightly around his head. Man, Adam was there to assist Dr. Hank, D-M did what she could fighting off infections while they worked.

She was too tired to do much of anything else.

It was my fault. Adrian hurt Bobby-Jerk. It was my fault this happened.

If I hadn't been distracted, if I hadn't been fretting over some guy then we could have done this better.

That's the only thing I could look forward to, doing better for the rest of the weekend. We still had to get four badges from four other X-Men or we failed. Flex probably was going to get into big trouble because of this, first he turned traitor on us by playing dirty and switching our badges while we slept, and then he injured one of the X-Men on purpose.

By the time it was my turn to see the Professor, Adrian walked out. His pleased-with-himself look was gone now, it seemed almost remorseful. Wishing me luck, he shut the door behind me and there I stood all alone with Scott, Professor, and Storm.

"Sit down, Kerry." Oh no. My birth name, something told me I was going to be in for a very lengthy lecture and I learned that Professor was not above talking to someone in their mind to make sure they were paying attention.

Instead of the dreaded sermon, something else happened. Out off all the stuff I had to put up with in the past week, nothing hit me harder than the nine words that walked casually out of Professor Xavier's mouth.

"We want you to step down as team leader."