"Now the trick here, is to watch how the structure reacts to each touch."
Very slowly and steadily, Kurt pulled a wooden block from the tower, placing it in a pile at his side.
"Oh man, Mr. Wagner, how are you so good at that?" Jubilee stared wide-eyed at the tower.
"When you have fingers like mine, fine motor skills are as epic a challenge as any android or alien parasite. Colossus and I liked to pass the time with this old thing, years ago."
"This is all great," Anna said unconvincingly, "But shouldn't we be training so that I don't constantly leech the energy away from people?"
"Too much training can be almost as bad as no training at all," Kurt said. "If you tell your brain that you are always on the defensive, it will believe you."
"We think your mutation is more of a defense mechanism than anything else," Clarice added. "At your age, everything stresses you out. In time, your body and mind will probably set aside their differences and work around your mutation. But for now, we have to lower your barriers manually. I know I probably sound like an old hippy, but we should really get you involved with Miss Pryde's yoga class."
"Yoga? Me?"
Clarice laughed. "I know. I wasn't sold on it either. You and I, patience isn't our strong suit. But it's actually really good."
"Gah!" Jubilee broke the flow of conversation as the tower fell with a clatter.
"Okay, now I'm committed. I have to figure this out."
Blink gave Jubilee a funny look, sizing up how she imagined the girl would 'figure out' a 40-year old game with two rules that she had apparently just learned about 45 minutes ago.
"Why don't you go get ready for lunch. We can talk about yoga later. I'll play next, Kurt. There should be time for one more round before the period is up."
Nightcrawler sagged a bit after the girls had left.
"I just wanted to spend a bit of time with her. But she was bored near to tears."
"You're a good guy, Kurt," Blink said, focusing on rebuilding the tower.
"She knows that. She's just maybe not so good at expressing it. If the X-Men could solve that problem we wouldn't need to worry about the hated and feared thing, we'd be millionaires."
"Well that was icky," Kitty said to herself as she phased onto the roof of a mausoleum. She was behind and above Lorna now. Every once and a while Cyclops left cover to volley an optic blast at his opponent.
A chunk of one of Polaris' shotguns flew past Kitty in a wide orbit.
"Oh look," Kitty said to herself. "Projectiles."
She dove off the mausoleum, phasing into the ground and popping up at Lorna's feet. She unphased and threw a punch at the green-haired woman's back. Lorna halted her assault on Cyclops, the attack catching her off guard.
"Clever, Polaris grinned, kicking out at her new target. Her foot slid ineffectually threw Kitty, who then lunged forward with another jab. Lorna caught Kitty's forearm with her hands, but Kitty phased again and moved for a sucker punch.
But Kitty was unphased long enough to catch an anvil in the back as she made her strike, the inertia of the large surprise Lorna had concealed sending her flying across the open graveyard. She landed with a grunt a few feet away from Cyclops.
"Two X-Men leaders at once," Polaris said as she retrieved her hat by the metal studs. "I thought it would be more of a challenge. But you two are barely trying."
"You can take us both down," Cyclops shouted. "But my team will deal with yours and come for you next!"
Shadowcat wheeled around to face her partner. His team?
"You mean 'our' team."
"The team. What's the difference?"
Kitty scowled, and broke off towards Polaris.
"Kitty, we need to stick together!"
"That's funny, because I haven't felt like we've been doing anything 'together' for a month and a half!"
Kitty was swatted aside by another chunk of metal.
"Am I interrupting something?" Polaris pouted. She was hoping for a real fight. But there was clearly a larger issue in play.
"Where is this coming from?" Scott threw his hands in the air. "We seriously can't do this right now!"
"You've been saying that the whole summer!"
"Okay, you two need a time out," Lorna muttered. Behind her the railroad tracks lifted with a groan.
"Chris, what are you doing here?"
A strange scene now played out in the center of the Wild West town. An angel, a glowing shit of armor, a boy with healing hands, and a weather witch now staring across at one another.
"Oh, you know," Chris wheezed. "Getting my ass kicked."
Warren's wings shone with golden light, and two thin lasers screamed out of his body towards Triage.
"Why are you fighting Warren here? Isn't the Danger Room big enough for everyone? I'm barely holding my own here as it is!"
"I don't suppose you want to trade?" Chris offered.
"Just go wait for backup! The others will be on their way soon!"
"I'm not helpless," Chris said with a dark twinge of determination.
He ran at his angelic opponent once more, and was thrown back a final time.
Hisako, meanwhile, had to refocus her efforts on the African goddess she was matching fists with. She had grown her armor to almost as large as she could go, and was hitting with the power to repel a rhino. But she just couldn't hit Ororo.
"You have not yet learned to overcome the loss of speed that comes from your increased size. In most match-ups that may not be an issue, you can just power through it. But I am not most match-ups."
Storm dove underneath the huge suit of pyonic armor, causing Hisako to twist to keep track of the veteran mutant. It was just the maneuver Ororo expected her to make, getting her center of gravity nice and off kilter for her to give a strong shove. Armor teetered and then fell with a crash.
Hisako's armor faded and Storm gave her a judo toss across the town square, the young woman landing next to Chris's limp form.
"Okay," she said as they both started booting out of the simulation.
"How about that trade?"
"Do you just think I can't do it? I'm not good enough?"
By now all pretenses of a training exercise had been abandoned.
"Do what, Kitty?"
"Lead! Lead this team! You've been undermining me since day one!"
"You need to calm down," Cyclops said sternly, putting his hand on Kitty's arm. But Kitty was on edge, and grabbed Scott's arm to toss him on the ground. Scott vaulted back up and gave her a low-power blast from his visor.
"You're way out of line!" He shouted as Kitty gave a shouting tackle into his chest.
A rail flew at Kitty and Scott, winding around them and squeezing like a boa constrictor.
Kitty phased out of the trap as Cyclops shredded the beams with his optic blast. They squared up again, just as the Danger Room simulation began to drop down. Emma and Mirage ran in to restrain their two coworkers.
"Break it up, you two!" Emma shouted. After a moment of struggle, the feeling passed. Scott and Kitty fell limp.
"Watch her, Lorna," Dani said, releasing Kitty and turning to the students
"Well," Mirage said, readjusting her uniform. "Let's break this down into two parts."
She looked at the two teachers sternly.
"Let's start with Class A; Sam and Roberto - you acted well under pressure.
The two boys exchanged a quiet fist bump.
"Though you were ultimately overpowered by superior numbers, your tenacity in the face of stronger opponents is commendable. Some of your other classmates could stand to follow your lead."
"Warren - your enthusiasm is good, though perhaps a bit overboard."
"Just a bit," Chris groaned.
"And lastly we have Storm," Dani looked to the older woman. "Clearly you don't need your powers to be a force to be reckoned with."
"Thank you, Miss Moonstar," Storm said. "If I may, I would like to thank Miss Ichiki for the excellent duel."
"As good a transition as any," Dani nodded. "Class X demonstrated good teamwork when the situation allowed. You could stand to improve your individual performances, but it's a fine problem to have for a group that's been together so long."
"But you," she wheeled around towards Kitty and Scott. "I'm not sure what's going on with you two, but you need to get your acts together. It's an embarrassing display in front of the students."
Kitty turned bright red.
"Honestly," Dani seemed genuinely angry. "Everyone is dismissed."
Rachel found her father outside the locker rooms.
"I'm sorry you had to see that," Cyclops said, a guilty frown on his face.
"Why were you two fighting?"
"I don't know," he said. "It just came out of nowhere. She was going on about me not wanting her to lead. It was the first I've heard of it."
"Are you sure?"
"Am I sure of what?"
"Sure it's not the first time? Remember a few weeks ago, when you met in her room?"
"You think she was going to talk to me about that?"
"I think she's been trying to talk to you about something for a long time."
"I guess I don't understand why she feels that way," he said. "This job isn't about stuff like that. You just do the job."
"Maybe you do, but not everyone is like you."
"Of course not. You… turned out a lot more like your mom that I did."
They looked at one another across an invisible gulf.
"Dad - I… I don't want to be angry at you."
Tears welled up in Rachel's eyes, the girl deciding now was as good a time as any to have this conversation.
"But I just can't understand why you did it. Why you gave up on Mom, why you left me behind any of it!"
"Rachel…" Cyclops put his arms around her.
"I never gave up on your mother. I spent years looking for her. I still know she's out there somewhere - up there, somewhere. And somehow, I think everything that's happened since then - meeting Emma, getting kidnapped by Essex, getting rescued by you - she was there with us. If you don't believe me, you can look in my head and see for yourself."
"I can't do that," Rachel said. "I can't convince myself I trust you that little."
On the other side of the lockers, Emma wished very much that invisibility was one of her mutant powers. Or curling up and dying.
Rachel turned to leave, then stopped and inhaled sharply.
"What's wrong?" Scott rushed to her. Her face was Steele's with glowing purple lines.
"Something is happening."
"I guess I thought life at the school would be… different," Anna lamented as she left the stall.
"But I just can't get the hang of it."
"If you do yoga, I'll come with," Jubilee offered. "All the wine moms in Beverly Hills made it look like fun."
She turned from the sink to see the hand dryer grinning at her savagely.
"Yesssss, child of light!" The hand dryer licked a row of sharp teeth.
"Gah!" Jubilee screamed and recoiled into the stall door. The door pushed her forward, with a chorus of laughter.
"What the hell are these things?"
"I don't know!" Rogue shouted, "We need to get out of here!"
Amara, N'Ezhno, and Dazzler ran into the room, hearing Jubilee and Anna's screams.
"Okay," Alison quickly composed herself. "Nez, Amara, get help, quickly."
She ran into the bathroom. The checker pattern of the tile floor had begun to warp and swirl, and the center of the room began to dip lower and lower.
"Down, down to the master!" One of the toilets cackled as the floor began to turn spongey and porous.
"We're being flushed!" Anna shouted. Around her the lights flickered and blinked like darting eyes.
Dazzler grabbed at Rogue - too late, as the floor began to swallow her.
"Miss Blaire!" N'Ezhno now rushed forward to pull Dazzler up. Amara joined in as well.
"I said get help!" Dazzler shouted.
"We're helping you!" Amara screamed back. The air was beginning to fill with a full roar, as a rush of wind began pouring from the drop ceiling. In the mirrors strata of Earth moved by in a blur like a dented elevator.
"Oh no," N'Ezhno realized what was about to happen and turned to his friend.
"Get back, Amara!" Nez pushed the fiery-headed girl out of the bathroom as a rush of wind and smoke burst from the floor, enveloping him. When she could see again, the bathroom was untouched - and empty.
"I couldn't get anything specific. It just hit me like a wave."
Kurt, Rachel, Illyana, and Scott were in the sitting room, trying to console the young telepath. There was a pit in the bottom of Illyana's stomach she couldn't shake.
"Mr. Wagner!"
Amara ran towards Nightcrawler, her face pale and grim.
Illyana read her expression and collapsed, clutching her head. Her greatest fear had come true.
"My god, not again."