&&&

"We should attack!" Donald Pierce insisted in the Inner Circle.

"Did you suddenly become the stupidest man ever?" Emma asked. "I have to ask do you practice being a fool Donald or does it simply come naturally?"

"Send your Hellions after them and destroy them!" Pierce demanded.

"If I've told you once I've told you a hundred times." Emma growled. "I am opposed to rushed attacks ordered on the spur of the moment. Careful planning is needed. Furthermore, I am also opposed to any attack on the X-Men and Misfits when they are together. Attacking them both only binds them closer together when the key to their destruction lies in dividing and conquering!"

"They're divided now!" Pierce shouted. "My spies in the Bayville police reported that half of the X-Men and Misfits are out camping. The rest must be back at the Institute. We should strike now!"

Emma threw up her hands in frustration. "I am tired of your whining and acting like an arm-chair general! If you feel so confident that they can be defeated so easily, then do it yourself Pierce! I will not send my Hellions out on a fool's errand, emphasis on the 'fool.' "

"Why you—" Pierce snarled.

"ENOUGH!" Vandal Savage boomed, silencing all discussion and arguments in the Inner Circle. "Now then…" He said in a calmer, colder tone of voice. "The White Queen has made an excellent point Pierce." Savage intoned. "You have constantly criticized and complained about the plans and attempts of the other members of the Inner Circle while making none yourself. It is about time you started pulling your own weight. You demand that the Misfits and X-Men be destroyed? Then by all means…do it Pierce. Succeed and your stock will rise in the Inner Circle. Fail…" There was no need to finish.

"Fine!" Pierce snapped. "My Reavers and I will take care of them myself! Then you'll see that mutant powers aren't all you make them out to be!"

&&&

"Now…explain this to me again." Cover Girl said as the spoke on the phone. "How exactly did you all end up in jail…again?"

It was about six thirty the next morning. A phone call had woken up the girls. When Cover Girl picked up the phone, Roadblock was on the line…calling from the Bayville police station.

"You mean to tell me that the guys knocked down some trees while chasing a ghost? What kind of ridiculous story is that? Oh, you said it's a ghost of one of Fred's relatives? Now it makes a little more sense…but not much. Look, Storm's already on her way with the bail money. She'll get you out of this. Why isn't Xavier calling? Oh, he's drunk? Let me guess Shipwreck? Yeah you're right, it went without saying…well just keep him from rolling over any guards' feet until Storm brings you guys home. I'll tell the girls…see you soon. Bye."

"Okay, listen up ladies!" Cover Girl said as she marched into the Living Room where the girls were in the process of getting up. "The boys got themselves in jail again. You know what this means?"

"Blackmail time?" Wanda asked.

"Besides that. It means that we're going to have a bunch of hungry, tired guys here in a little bit, so it's time to make breakfast!"

"Pancakes! Pancakes!" Naomi, Spyder, and Trinity chanted as they jumped around in a circle. Penny made happy noises. Cover Girl smiled.

"All right, pancakes it is." She said to much cheering from the younger girls. "I'll get started on our pancakes. Jean, Lina, Althea, you girls help. Kitty, why don't you get started on the guy's pancakes?"

"Um, Cover Girl—" Rogue gulped. "Please think about what you just said." Cover Girl grinned wickedly.

"I did."

"Ah, additional punishment." Wanda nodded in understanding.

"Wasn't jail enough?" Angelica winced as Kitty headed into the kitchen.

"Nope."

&&&

Amira and Sooraya meanwhile were already up with the sun for dawn prayers and had just finished breakfast in their room and had started talking about home, family and had just moved onto more current events.

"So what did you think of the sleepover?" Amira asked Sooraya.

"It was…most enjoyable." Sooraya said. "I enjoyed getting to know the others. They seem pleasant."

"Wait until they're all together." Amira rolled her eyes. "Then you may have to revise that sentiment a bit."

"You seem unwontedly cynical." Sooraya noted.

"I thought I've been wontedly cynical." Amira replied. "Haven't I earned the right?"

"Maybe if you tried giving people a chance you would find that they are better than you believe them to be."

"We'll see." Amira said skeptically as the two of them made their way downstairs.

"Nice of you to join us." Pietro snorted as Sooraya and Amira came down to the breakfast table. Since they were both up earlier than the others for their morning prayers the two of them had breakfast earlier as well but they still joined the others at the table when they ate.

That way Sooraya could keep the others company while they ate and not seem as if she was deliberately shunning the company of the others—her burqa made it impossible for her to eat with it on and her religious convictions made it impossible for her to be seen without it in mixed company.

"Well, it is said, Pietro, that the civilized person seeks out good and intelligent company, so that, through learned discourse, they may rise above the savage and closer to Allah." Sooraya said as she took a seat.

"That is well said." Xavier complemented as they sat down. Pietro preened.

"Why, thank you!"

"Personally, I like to start the day with a total dickhead to remind me I'm best." Amira snorted as she shot Pietro a glance. He physically deflated.

"Amira!" Ororo chastised her.

"Who, like, wants second helpings?" Kitty asked as she came out with another plate full of pancakes.

"Please no more!" Lance moaned. "We're dying here!"

"I think you boys can all have one more pancake." Cover Girl grinned.

"Haven't we been punished enough?" Hank whined.

"That's what I said." Angelica noted.

Suddenly the phone rang. "I'll get it." Jean said as she got up.

"So are you guys going to go back to the Pit?" Doug asked.

"Maybe later." Spirit grimaced as he held his stomach. "After we…get over Kitty's pancakes."

"Hey everyone!" Jean shouted as she rushed back in. "That was Jake Wildfire on the phone and he invited us to watch him and his brother wrestle!"

"Oh, great," Amira snorted. "I'd rather have a Danger Room session."

"Come on, it'll be fun!" Jubilee said. "Let's go!"

"You girls go." Warran grimaced. "We can't go anywhere with Kitty's pancakes poisoning us."

"Hey!" Kitty exclaimed.

"I'd voice an objection but I'm in too much pain to think straight." Xavier groaned. "You girls go enjoy yourselves."

"I'll go too." Scott winced. "I better make sure the Wildfires don't pull anything. I only had two of Kitty's pancakes anyway."

"Same here." Gilaad added as he stood up.

"Lucky." Bobby moaned.

"There's no way your going to get me go along to put up with those idiotic—" Amira snapped.

"I always liked wrestling." Amira heard Althea comment to Rogue.

"—I'll come with you." Amira continued not missing a beat.

&&&

"Here we are!" Cover Girl said as the Mass Device transported them to a wrestling arena near Boston.

"I can't believe I'm back here again." Amira muttered. Her memories of Boston were tainted with the knowledge that it was Emma Frost's hometown and not far from the location of the Massachusetts Academy; neither of which stirred pleasant memories with her.

"Hey relax we're here to have fun!" Tabby whooped as the girls made their way towards the stage. Jake and Kyle Wildfire were waiting for them.

"Look who showed up." Kyle snickered. "The Girl Scouts? Now wait, they don't look tough enough to be girl scouts."

"Go to hell, yebnen kelp." Amira cursed in Arabic. Even without knowing just what she called him, Kyle glared at her.

"Please, we didn't come here to fight." Lina said as she got between them.

"Actually, since this is a wrestling arena…" Wanda pointed out. Kyle spat on the floor near Lina's feet.

"I see you brought the bug fairy pacifist with you." Then he noticed Sooraya. "What the hell is with this jabroni? Do you want to start something coming here like that?"

"I do not like violence." Sooraya stated. Kyle sneered.

"Figures. Just how many cowards are with you people? And why are you wearing that garbage bag anyway? Are you afraid to show your face or are you just plain ugly?" Amira tapped him on the shoulder. "Yeah, what?" Amira's reply was a right hook to Kyle's right eye.

"I wish I could say I didn't see that coming," Jake Wildfire sighed. "Kyle you've got to learn to watch your mouth."

"She'd be better off watching my fists!" Kyle bellowed as he tried to leap at Amira, only to be held back by his brother.

"Look, we invited you guys here to watch some wrestling. Why don't we do that and forget the bickering." Jake suggested. "Come on Kyle, why don't you burn off some of that excess energy of yours?" Still grumbling, Kyle made his way into the ring and started wrestling with his brother. The others watched a couple of practice rounds between them. Things were going smoothly until after one round where Amira said to Jake:

"I know that it isn't easy," She said. "And you do it very well. But it doesn't have a lot to do with fighting."

"What've you got against wrestling jabroni?" Kyle demanded angrily. As usual it didn't take much effort for Kyle to get under Amira's skin.

"I don't know. Something about a pair of hot, sweaty guys in tight spandex and masks trying to grab and hold each other…seems kinda gay." Amira smirked. "Not to mention fake."

"RAARRGH!" Kyle snarled as he leapt at her, only his brother and Scott were able to hold him back again. Barely. "Let me at her! She insulted wrestling!"

"I know." Jake sighed. He didn't care for Amira maligning the sport he and his father excelled in, but knew it was ignorance—and a loathing of Kyle—that motivated it. "Okay, Missy. You think it's all staged, do you? All right, then. Get into the ring, and I'll show you how to work a match."

"What? Let me pound her face in!" Kyle demanded.

"You're not interested in demonstrating wrestling." Jake frowned at him. "You just want to get in there and hurt her. Not happening." Kyle crossed his arms and grumbled like a child denied a snack.

"Sorry, but I'd hate to get all the girls on my team mad at me if I bruised your pretty little face." Amira said without malice. "Besides I'm not dumb enough to let my ego drag me into a contest I'm not familiar with."

"It would be hard to make it an even match." Jake admitted.

"That's too bad." Althea sighed. "I would've liked to see you two wrestle."

"Out of my way!" Amira said as she quickly scrambled up into the ring. Jake rolled his eyes at the display, though not in a condescending way. He recognized a crush when he saw it.

"Shall we?" Jake asked with a grin as he prepared himself for the match. Amira was put off for a moment by his confidence and his smooth moves.

"No," she told herself. "You've got nothing to fear. Combat isn't a sport. You've done it for real. He does it for show."

But maybe the advantage wasn't hers she realized belatedly. He was used to sparring, to launching attacks without deadly intent. She's wasn't.

He gave her a big old grin as he launched himself at her.

Amira's training wasn't in wrestling, in grappling and holds but in a flighty, more maneuverable and precision oriented type of combat. She remembered her training at the Massachusetts Academy and with Synthoids when she was with Cobra. She practiced attacking joints and pressure points with punches and kicks, breaking bones and snapping necks—or whatever passed for them on a Synthoid.

Fortunately she'd never had to do that to a living human being. But the fact remained that the way she was trained to fight and the way Jake was trained were simply too different for her style to be of much use here. And as she realized early, when she fought it was with the intent to do harm. Fighting for sport…that she didn't know how to do. Even her spars with Althea didn't prepare her for that.

Jake started off by grabbing Amira's arm and flinging her into the ropes and then tried to catch her with a flying clothesline. Amira avoided it easily, bending underneath his arm as if it were merely a stationary limbo stick.

She swept her leg out and knocked Jake's out from under him. Jake landed with a whuff. "You're just full of surprises." He said as he got back up and rushed at Amira, grabbed an arm and threw Amira over his shoulder. "But then, so am I."

Amira landed hard on her backside. She didn't know whether or not wrestling was real but one thing was for sure: Jake was a fighter.

As she was getting up, Jake came around from behind and got her in a full nelson. "Gotcha!"

"Not. Quite!" Amira grunted as she twisted and contorted and wiggled her way free. Jake looked surprised at her ability to get out of the hold. She leapt up and balanced herself on the top rope.

"Nice." Jake nodded. Amira jumped off the rope and tried to land on Jake but he darted out of the way and tried to body slam her. Amira rolled out of the way though. Now that they had gotten an idea of each others' talents and styles the match became that much more grueling.

But Jake was the one with the advantage, he'd been wrestling since he could walk and Amira's confidence had been shaky since the start, all the more so when it became apparent just how talented Jake was. As Napoleon once said "The moral is to the physical as three is to one."

Amira attempted to make a grab for Jake's arm but slipped on the now sweat-slicked floor. She landed hard. Jake came up from behind her, hauled her up and placed an arm across her throat, pinning her arms in between them. Amira grunted. He had her and he knew it. He gave her than grin again. Boyish and infuriating. "We can call it a draw." He offered magnanimously.

Amira twitched her arm and moved her hand. He went rigid, the looked slowly down to see the tip of a 100-mm hideout knife pressed against his groin.

"When it's for real," she said, "it's never a draw." She turned the knife aside and drove it five millimeters into his thigh, just enough to break the skin.

&&&

After Amira stabbed Jake Wildfire, all hell broke loose. Jake went wide eyed and let Amira go, more in shock than in pain. Kyle leapt into the ring intent on killing Amira which he probably would have if Rogue hadn't used her super strength to restrain him.

Amira got up out of the ring and strode outside, not speaking to or talking to anyone. She wouldn't even meet their eyes.

She kept her face impassive as she walked outside and made her way out back to the empty parking lot. She took a deep breath and promptly threw up in a garbage can.

"Mind if I ask what that was all about?" Lina asked from behind Amira as she finished heaving.

"The throwing up or the stabbing?"

"Um, either really." Lina answered. "Are you all right?"

"If I were, would I be throwing up?" Amira groaned as she hawked and spat. "Nrrrrgh. I guess I'm just disgusted with myself." Lina looked at her in confusion, prompting her to continue. "I wasn't always a bitch you know."

"You aren't a—"

"Yes I am." Amira said firmly. "Don't try to deny it. But I wasn't always this way…after my family was—after I lost my family, I adopted an attitude for survival that you have to do what you have to in order to survive."

"That the ends justify the means?" Lina asked incredulously but was surprised when Amira nodded in agreement.

"Yes. They can sometimes, anyway. Look, long story short I don't believe in fair play or honor or chivalry or any of that crap; especially considering that it's considered okay to kill people in the name of honor if they transgress some archaic code of conduct. At any rate, playing by the rules when the rules—and the odds—are stacked against you is asking to get yourself killed. If the only way to win, the only way to survive, is to fight dirty, to cheat…then fine. And damn anyone who gets in a snit over it."

"Okay, I understand that." Lina said, though she didn't say a word about agreeing with it. "But then, why stab Jake in a game?"

"I don't know…I guess maybe I was jealous. I had to becomes this…this foul bitch in order to live while he gets to fight and be all pure and honorable and damn innocent. I doubt he'd stay that innocent if he had my childhood. And I guess I felt 'obligated' to show him what real life was like. So he wouldn't be so damn innocent…"

"And more like you? So you wouldn't feel that you were this strange monster that no one else understood?" Lina guessed shrewdly. Amira nodded and turned away. "Honey, you're not a monster. Yes, you had a rougher past than most of the others but that doesn't mean that you have to be alone. Look at Rina!"

"I just feel…so ashamed of what I've become sometimes." Amira sniffed. "But it doesn't feel wrong…I wish I were wrong but I'm not. I'm just sorry that I felt like I had to make everyone…like me."

"Amira?" Amira and Lina turned around to see Jake heading towards them, favoring his injured leg.

"I'm…I'm so sorry." Amira choked out, her eyes wet.

"It's okay. No real harm done; except maybe to my brother's blood pressure." Jake shot her that same innocent boy grin. "Remind me not to get on your bad side."

"I am so sorry." Amira sighed again. "I shouldn't have gotten so involved in just a game."

" 'Just a game?' " Jake raised a questioning eye-brow. "Talk like that started this whole mess."

"You're right, sorry. You're a sweet guy…and a great fighter." Amira admitted. "If you were a girl I'd drag you into the sack in a minute."

"Thanks, I-uh, huh?" Jake asked in disbelief, a vein over his eye twitching.

"I think you broke him." Lina blinked as he stood their gabbing.

"There's more than one way to fight." Amira smirked as she left.

&&&

"We're in position sir." A Reaver reported to Donald Pierce. Pierce looked at the monitor, displaying the wrestling arena in Boston. He smiled grimly. Not only would he do what Emma failed to do, he would do it right in her own backyard!

"All units advance." Pierce ordered. "And destroy the mutants!"

&&&

A/N: Jake Wildfire and Kyle Wildfire belong to L1701E, thanks for letting me use them! I don't know a lot about wrestling so don't get on my case if I didn't use a lot of proper terms or whatnot.