The rest of the morning and lunch were not particularly exciting, involving the usual boring classes, and the vague excitement of trying to avoid the overly attentive Arch while not letting him realize that he was being avoided. Altogether, nothing out of the ordinary (Though Katie did note that Scott nearly missed lunch, coming in extremely late, which was out of character).

But this was the last thing on her mind as she dropped her bag in her room, taking a last minute to touch herself up and switch her things before running off to the Danger Room. In fact, she was so preoccupied, she nearly sat on the red envelope, twin of the one she'd found the night before. With shaking hands she opened it, her heart beating rapidly. Eagerly anticipating what Shade had to say today,

Katie. Darling,

I know that I wrote only last night, but I could not stay away. Your beauty keeps my heart on a tether. I fear I could never stay away from you too long, for my heart would burst. If only I could be with you always. Hold you close to me, and feel your heart beat against my chest. As I watched you today, and knew you had read my letter... it took all of my self control not to reveal myself to you, to hold you, kiss you, run my fingers through your silken hair and tell you how much I love you. For that is what I feel for you. My heart burns for you with the passion of a thousand suns. Just after lunch I saw you, sitting on the window seat, the sunlight bathing you with a warm golden glow...you looked like an angel... just begging for me to come to you. Begging me to envelop you in my arms and take you right there, with everyone watching. I want to hear you sigh and moan my name while I show you just how much I long for your caress and the feel of your skin beneath my eager fingertips.

I love you. I need you. I can't stop thinking about you.

Shade

Katie sat down heavily, with a drawn-out gasp and a massive shiver. His words had set her to trembling in a most lovely way, and she found herself wanting him to do what he said he'd wanted to. Arousal (because that's what he was doing, turning her on), desperate curiosity (just who was he?), and anticipation for the next note were heady emotions to mix, and she nearly swooned. Damn, he was a good writer... but now she'd barely be able to concentrate on her next class.

- - -

Eventually, Katie made it down to the locker rooms in one piece, her knees still trembling as she went over the letter over and over in her mind. Upon her entrance, Nicole burst, "FINALLY! God you take FOREVER! C'mon! Scott, Logan and everyone else are waiting for you!".

Silently, Katie brushed past Nicole and put on her leather uniform, making sure it fit snuggly just in case Shade was going to be watching...

"About time!" growled Logan, as the two girls exited the locker room, "its been a good half hour since the lesson should have began.." he continued but Scott cut him off sharply.

"Shut up Logan. If you'll recall, I'm the teacher of this class, not you. The girls are here now so lets not make a big deal of it.." he snapped. He looked flustered, and he kept running his hand through his hair and pulling at the collar of his suit.

Logan fell quiet, though he looked like he would have liked to just end the argument by giving Scott a good, solid smack to the head. Scott ignored him, trying to regain some of his composure. "Alright," he began, turning back to address his crowd of leather-clad students. "Today we're going to do something entirely different, and I want you to pay attention." he continued, still looking like his thoughts were elsewhere as he explained about the Brotherhood-Sim they were going to be doing.

"Now, this sim is going to be very realistic. You will be able to see, feel, smell, and taste everything as if it were real. If debris falls on your head, you'll have a bump for days, if you fall on something sharp, you will get cut. Any injuries that you suffer will not disappear as the simulation is de-activated. So be careful. The object of this sim is to work together as a team." Scott looked at Logan briefly, "For once." he added for good measure. Not that this little speech affected Logan in the slightest as he could heal from any wound that he received, so as usual he didn't pay attention to a word that Scott said. Scott really didn't care if Logan paid him any attention, if Logan fucked up than it was Logan whose ass would be on the line. Besides, he'd gotten used to it.

"Now, I want you to be on your guard. If you've been paying any attention, you'll have some idea of what you're going to be up against, but the selection is random. You need to be careful, and you need to help each other out. Are you ready?" The students all nodded mutely at him, (Pyro shaking his head "no" because he could), and Scott nearly sighed with relief as the sim started, sending them into a dark, sketchy sort of alleyway between a shady parking garage and an abandoned-looking warehouse. Finally, some distraction...

The sudden change from light to dark surprised Katie and she grabbed the first person she could reach in surprise. "Agh! Katie get off!" Nicole hissed, pushing at her friend's shoulders, "You scared me! Grabbing me when it's pitch black... could have been anyone.." Nicole trailed off into incoherent grumbles.

Sighing, Katie let go of her, shaking her head. She had forgotten that Nicole always got tense during sims. Especially in sims that included real injuries. Everyone stood stalk still, trying to see in the gloom.

"Everyone stay together." Scott's voice traveled to them from the front of the group, "And stay sharp... if anyone is acting peculiarly don't trust them. Mystique is a shape shifter.."

This word of advice didn't help much, as students began eyeing their friends and companions shiftily. The tension was mounting, and the group was beginning to split into smaller bands. Just as Scott was about to say something else practical and leader-ly, the silence was split by a high scream as one of the girls was seized by the throat from behind by a massively large man with freakishly long eyebrows and cat-like claw-nails.

"Holy shit!" Nicole squealed, pointing in a completely different direction , at a boy being smacked in the face by a disgustingly long, green tongue that protruded from the mouth of a short skinny guy who was crouching, sideways on the wall of the warehouse.

"Don't just stand there! DO Something!" Logan growled, launching himself into the cat-like man, who yowled and dropped the girl. All of the students seemed not to know what to do, but a few seemed to snap to attention at Logan's words.

What order there had been dissolved into near absolute chaos, with members of the Brotherhood appearing on either side at random (it seemed), throwing most of the weaker and/or less wary students completely off-guard.

"Goddamn it, you'd think they'd be used to it by now!" Nicole snarled to herself, as she was forced to rescue a petrified looking boy from what looked like a human porcupine.

"Maybe they're just not as warlike as you are," Katie commented back, almost obscenely calmly. Stepping behind her friend for a moment, she took a deep breath, trying to feel the latent electricity running through the darkened garage's light system. If she managed to turn it on, maybe they'd be able to see what they were up against...?

Unfortunately, as Katie built up enough energy and the lights finally burst into life, it only illuminated a scene of (no longer 'near', but) absolute chaos. Younger, more inexperienced students were running in all directions, while the older students fought to keep them safe and under control. A huge man kept crashing through walls after Kitty, an elderly man wearing a metal helmet was floating feet above them, tossing huge metal objects up and letting them fall into the swarm of panicked younglings, the toad-like man was tossing students hither and thither with his powerful, sticky tongue, and a blue woman who was apparently completely naked and covered in strange scales was morphing into other students and had even impersonated Scott.

Meanwhile, completely in their own world, the cat-man and Logan were in the middle of a vicious combat. Claws flashing and teeth bared, both emitting animalistic growls and hisses.

"Shit." Katie commented, though now that she'd turned the lights on it would only make it worse to turn them off.

"Nice job," Nicole replied, stopping one of the larger metal pieces that had been flung their way, and tossing it back. Now it was impossible to ignore how what a very bad idea this seemed to have been.

"Nicole, have fun. I'm going after that toad-thing," Katie decided at last, with a grimace of distaste.

"Ew, good luck. " Nicole called, her body giving in to involuntary shuddering as she tried to force a streetlight post back into Magneto's face.

"You young people!" he called, laughing at Nicole's struggle, his eyes sparkling malevolently, "Always biting off more than you can chew." he growled. He brought his hands together, and the post twisted itself around Nicole, trapping her arms to her sides. She then was thrust forcefully up against the wall of the warehouse. Nicole's body went rigid from the forceful contact with the solid brick, then her body went limp as everything around her faded away to darkness.

"Nicole!" Katie squealed, turning her back on Toad momentarily to stare at her unconscious friend. What happened? Was she alright? But there was no time to think about it as she felt Toad's tongue wrap around her angle. "BLECK!" she screamed, stomping down on his tongue with her high-heeled boot. Toad screamed, his tongue rolling back into his mouth as he covered it, dancing from foot to foot in pain. "Serves you right, you've got a dirty tongue!"

Trying to keep a watchful eye on Toad at the same time, Katie called out. "Bobby!"

He, some thirty feet away with Pyro and defending a large gaggle of younglings (yay for mixing movies), looked up. "What?"

"Nicole!" She called back, pointing. Didn't cold things help wake people up?

He nodded at her, and right about there she lost track of what she'd been doing as she was almost hopped on in an undignified, and a large wad of some disgustingly sticky green stuff was hacked onto her face.

"Fuck!" she tried to mumble through it, giving him the best shock she could manage under the circumstances, trying not to panic as she realized she couldn't breathe. Katie's lungs felt like they were on fire as the world around her began to spin. Losing her footing, she fell to her knees, desperately trying to pry the gunk from her face, but to her horror it had dried. Can't breathe...

"Katie!" Scott's voice seemed to call to her from far away. "Katie, don't move!" she felt his presence over her, he was pinning her to the ground with his hand on her shoulder. A burning heat enveloped her face momentarily and the disgusting dried gunk broke from her face like shattered glass.

Gasping, she breathed in the sweet, wonderful air.

Scott's face hovered over her, looking concerned and anxious. "You ok?"

She nodded at him weakly, coughing and gasping. "Now I am, thanks." she tried to reassure him in a raspy voice, not wanting him to be worried about her when she was (now, at least) fine. Finally getting her breathing under some control she took the hand he held out to her, standing up, before clutching onto him blindly for support as she dissolved in another coughing fit.

From somewhere above her head, Katie heard Scott chuckle. He wrapped an arm around her waist to keep her up, and a warm hand rubbed up and down her back gently. "You sure that your alright?" he murmured softly into her ear.

She shivered, remembering his hands doing the same thing that they were doing now. Sliding up and down... up and down soothingly... "Y-yeah. m'fine..." She shivered again, wanting more than anything to move in closer to him, wanting him to really hold her... but obviously, she couldn't, he was only being nice to her because that was what he did. Scott was nice, and she was just a student to him. The end. So she carefully, not wanting him to misconstrue, stepped out of his reach. "I think the rest of the world needs some rescuing too," Katie offered as explanation.

"Right." he agreed nodding curtly, his face impassive behind his visor. With this said, they separated.