Storm explains the competition to us, gesturing behind herself to what's been set up. I'm not too confident, since I'm still trying to get my strength back, but I don't have a choice, do I? We line up at the start of the course, and as Storm yells go, we take off, charging at the vertical wall, the first object in our way. It's three or four metres high, with only a couple of little handholds. I jump and manage to hook my fingers over the edge of one, but I'm slipping. I feel something underneath me, and then go flying into the air, just managing to balance on top of the wall. I don't have much room to move, since the wall's only about half a metre wide, just under a metre at the most. I look down and see Jessie standing at the base of the wall.
"Help the others up," she calls. "We do this as a team."
I nod, kneeling down and hanging my hand over the edge as Bec runs at the wall. I grab her hand tightly, and don't let go until Jessie's done her part and she's up with me.
"Keep going," I tell her, already turning back around for the next. While others scale the wall, streaking ahead of me, I stay, until there's only Morgan left, and Jessie after her.
Morgan runs at the wall and jumps, giving a startled yelp as she misses my hand and starts to fall. I instinctively drop and lay flat on top of the wall and grab at her wrist, holding on tight. I reach behind myself and grab at the far edge of the wall to stop myself from falling. She looks up at me confusedly, eyes full of fear, but grabs my wrist tightly.
"I'm not going to let you fall," I tell her, slowly pulling her up with Jessie's help. She gets a foothold and pushes herself up a bit, and I pull harder, until she's on top of the wall with me. She puts her hand on my shoulder and squeezes it tightly, and I do the same.
"Thanks," she says, before leaping off the wall and rolling to break her fall. I turn back to Jessie, who looks up at me and nods.
"I'll try and get myself up," she says.
"I'm here if you need me," I say, standing up.
She uses her power to push herself into the air, and lands on top of the wall, but overbalances. I grab at her, and she reaches for me. She wraps her arms around me as we both go down, but she lets go with one hand. I feel pressure underneath us and we slow down, softening the fall. We let go of each other and cough, winded from the landing.
"Quick thinking, gotta love it," I mutter, pushing myself back up onto my feet. I hold my hand out to Jessie, who gladly takes it and pull her up, too.
"I wasn't sure if that was even going to work," she says as we head over to the others.
"Lucky it did, then," I say.
When we reach the others, we look up, and see Holly slowly climbing a rope dangling from the ceiling. There's twelve of them, and our group of eight is all standing underneath the one on the end. Just as we reach them, Holly falls, landing on the thick mats.
"How are we going to get up there?" Bec asks, shaking her head.
I look at the ropes and my head tilts slightly to one side. They're about seven or eight metres long, and pretty thick.
"I reckon they could hold three of us, no problem," I say, eyes scanning the group.
"How will that help?" Holly asks. "None of us can climb up that rope, it's too high."
"We need the strongest of us, the lightest of us, and Jessie," I say.
"Why?" Morgan asks sceptically.
"Whoever's strongest climbs partway up the rope, with the lightest person following them. They need to be able to throw, too, and Jessie follows both of them. The first person tries to throw the second person up a bit, and Jessie pushes them up a bit before she uses her power to boost them right up. They grab the ring, throw it as far as they can to a fourth person near the bin, who grabs it and puts it in."
"You know, that might work," Jessie says, looking up at the ring near our rope. "I'm not sure if I could get enough energy to do it, but I'll try."
"So who's going up?" Caitlin asks.
"Morgan's the strongest, and Darcy's easily the lightest," Holly says. "It makes sense that they should go up with Jess."
"I'm up for that," Morgan says, glancing up at the rope and back at me. "Don't you dare back out on me now, kid," she says, jabbing a finger at my chest. "This was your idea."
I nod. "Caitlin, you go out near the bin and draw it in."
She nods and jogs off as Morgan begins to climb. I look up at her and take a deep breath, then step up onto the mat. Morgan's about two thirds of the way up and is staying there, looking down at me somewhat impatiently.
"Get your ass up here," she says. "I'll come down if you can't get up here."
I raise my hands to head height and pull myself up, wrapping my feet tightly around the rope. I slowly make my way up the rope until I'm a couple of feet below Morgan. I can feel Jessie starting to climb below me, but don't dare look down.
"You aren't scared of heights, are you?" Morgan asks.
"I'm not scared of heights," I say, locking eyes with her.
By this point, Jessie's stopped just underneath me, and Morgan slides down a bit to meet me. Morgan reaches for me, and grabs my wrist like we did before. I let go with my other hand and let out the breath I didn't even know I was holding. I'm about to give Morgan my entire weight when I hesitate.
"Morgan," I say tentatively.
"What is it, kid?" she asks, looking down at me with a little bit of kindness in her usually cold eyes.
"Don't let me fall. Please," I plead.
"I promise you, I'll be down there before you, and I'll make sure you end up on the mats. Trust me. Let go."
I unwrap my feet from around the rope and feel Jessie's hands underneath my feet.
"Ready?" she yells.
"Ready!" Morgan and I yell in unison.
"One," Jessie yells, as both of them push me up as they count.
"Two," Morgan yells, her eyes never leaving mine.
"Three!" I yell as I go flying into the air. Just as I start to drop I feel a force underneath me, pushing me into the air. It disappears for a second and I panic, but feel it again, stronger this time. I just manage to wrap my hand around one of the steel rafters in the roof, just next to the ring. I reach out and just manage to get my fingers around it. I finally look down and feel a little dizzy as I realise how far I have to fall, and we haven't even figured out how I'm going to get down again. I'm a metre or two away from the rope, so I can't grab it and climb down. I throw the ring as hard as I can, Frisbee style, towards Caitlin.
She holds out her hand and her gravitational pull increases, the ring finding its way into her outstretched hand. She runs for the bin and tosses it in before running back to our group.
"I can't hold on much longer," I call down to them, trying not to think of the numbness in my arm. My palms are sweaty, and my fingers are painstakingly slipping from around the smooth metal.
"Darcy, let go," another voice says firmly, not one of our group. "You're not spending another week in a sling, or a neck brace for that matter."
"Hi, Kitty," I say guiltily, dangling from the roof like a ragdoll.
She looks up at me disapprovingly. "Points for originality, but you're about to fall. Let go, I'll catch you."
Letting go is pointless; my fingers have already slipped, and I'm hurtling towards Kitty. Just as I make contact with her arms, we both disappear, and I can't see anything, or breathe. Moments later the light reappears, and she lets go of me.
"What just happened?" I ask shakily.
"I phased us through the floor," she says simply.
"Thanks. I think," I say, still a little confused about what happened.
"You've already spent enough time off training, and I'm not going to watch you get hurt again."
Storm claps her hands and we all run to the centre of them room, standing in a group in front of her, and the other X-Men that are supervising our training today.
"Congratulations to Caitlin, who managed to get a ring in the bin first. But," she adds, "she wouldn't have been able to do so without the help of her team. Although I didn't tell you, this was an exercise in teamwork. Caitlin, Holly, Jessie, Darcy, Bec, Morgan, Elle, and Abby, you have all won this competition. You can come up to my office after dinner to collect your rewards. Class dismissed."
We all run to the change rooms and have a shower, the steam quickly filling the tiled room, condensing on the ceiling and dripping back down. I pull on my clothes and head up to my room before dinner. I stand at the window and watch the others playing basketball and sigh. I used to be on the school team, but I can't really play now in case I touch someone. I start as the door opens behind me and spin around, but it's just Morgan.
"You should probably go down now," she mutters, rifling through her drawer. "I'll meet you down there."
"Sure," I say, eyeing her carefully. "Are you alright?" She looks a little worried, but I know it's not my problem.
"Yeah, just a little tired, go."
I go downstairs and meet up with the others, but Morgan's put me on edge. She wanders into the room a few minutes later and I relax, but notice her hand shaking slightly. I don't mention it, and nobody else seems to notice it. We all finish eating and head up to Storm's office to collect our reward from training. She hands us each a block of chocolate and we head back to our rooms for the night.
Morgan and I change and Morgan pulls out a laptop and some headphones and sits on her bed in silence. I sit on mine and stare at the wall, just thinking about everything.
"Where did you say you used to live?" Morgan asks, her voice breaking me out of my thoughts.
"Near Mount Cameron, why?" I ask, turning to look at her.
"Just wondering," she says. I glance at her screen and see her looking over maps.
"Are you trying to find my house?" I ask, raising an eyebrow.
"Yeah," she says sheepishly. "You wanna show me where it is, or do I have to look for myself?"
"Sure," I say, swinging my legs off the edge of my bed. Now, where are you now?" I mutter to myself. I scroll around the screen until I find a familiar road and follow it until I reach our town. "That's our town. My house is around here somewhere."
I zoom in and keep looking until I find the road and follow it to where my house should be. I point to a spot on the screen and look at her.
"I think that's my house. I haven't seen it in months."
She hits the street view button and the screen adjusts and I can't help but stare at the screen as I see my house. We lived at the end of the street, and then it was just bush, all I could see out my window.
"That's it?" she asks.
"That's it," I say. "You can't see it, but my bedroom was on the other side of the house." Tears well in my eyes as I think of the last time I was in there.
"Are you alright?" Morgan asks, closing her laptop.
"Yeah, I just- I just- I don't know, it's difficult," I stammer. "I'm going to bed."
I lay down and pull the blanket over me, trying to dry my tears before they even appear. Morgan turns off the light and I hear her get into her own bed.
"I'm sorry," she says quietly through the dark. "I didn't mean to, you know…"
"Don't think you did anything wrong," I mumble. "It's not your fault I'm a sensitive little bitch."
She doesn't say anything else, and I'm grateful for that. She might not be the nicest person around, but she's tolerant, I'll give her that.
