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The Professor steepled his fingers together. "I am extremely displeased with how you handled yourselves." He said to Amira and Gilaad in his study, the other instructors were present.
"My apologies for not letting myself get killed." Gilaad said deadpan. Amira snorted.
"Your levity doesn't do you credit. Three men are dead and six more are in the hospital because of you." Hank pointed out.
"Hey!" Amira protested. "Don't give him all the credit. Some of those guys in the hospital are there because I hit them in the face chunks of concrete! Keep your facts straight."
"Your behavior—both of you—is simply unacceptable. You cannot keep those weapons."
"I'll turn over my gun when you all agree to start wearing mutant suppressing collars whenever we're not in a battle." Gilaad returned. "You lot are more dangerous than my gun any day. Any one of you are."
"To say nothing of my knives." Amira said in a surprising agreement. "My powers make me great at defense but I can't really stop a Sentinel or a super-strong mutant by kicking it. I needed something to help defend myself with. Pure defense is inferior to a combination of defense and offense. But even with my daggers, any one of you is more dangerous than a dozen of me."
"It isn't the same thing—" Ororo started to say.
"Who electrocutes a certain sailor on a regular basis because he keeps hitting on her?" Amira asked rhetorically.
"He asked for it!" Ororo shouted.
"So did the Reavers!" Amira shot back. "If Shipwreck deserves all the crap you put him through, then armed men trying to kill us certainly warrants that we defend ourselves! Especially when our so called teachers," She glared at Scott and Ororo. "Certainly as hell weren't up to the task!"
"That's not fair!" Scott protested. Amira laughed like a loon.
"You expect life to be fair? You must have had a pretty f—ing privileged life indeed."
"Watch your language!" Jean chastised her. Amira didn't even bother replying to Jean. "Normally, I'd be the last person in the world to want a trigger-happy Israeli to have a weapon but given how much use those two were in a fight when their powers are gone—" Amira jerked a thumb over at Scott and Ororo. "I'd have to say to let him keep it."
"We weren't anticipating Pierce to attack us, much less to neutralize our powers!" Ororo said. Amira threw up her hands in frustration.
"You're. The. Freaking. X-Men! Did you guys somehow not notice this? You should always anticipate getting attacked because you always are! It's frigging ridiculous! You guys get attacked on a more regular basis than freaking Lebanon."
"Ha ha." Gilaad drawled. "Funny."
"My point is." Amira drove on. "That given how often you get attacked its sheer stupidity that you don't prepare yourselves for all contingencies! Without your powers most of you are liabilities in a fight! Heck, given all the enemies you've got I'm surprised you don't take weapons with you into the shower and on the toilet!"
"The fundamental mission of the X-Men is peaceful." Xavier said after a deep-breath. "Wanton violence—"
"Is exactly what you train these kids for," Gilaad cut him off "Professor, you give the kids codenames, uniforms, you train them with flame throwers, lasers, drones, buzzsaws, obstacle courses and training more advanced and dangerous than most armies and their supervisor is a psychopath. No offense." He added to Logan.
"None taken." Logan grunted.
"The point is; you're just angry because we were violent with the same weapons everyone else uses, instead of the ones that you guys are born with."
"Mutants are not weapons. Our abilities are perfectly natural." Xavier said forcefully.
"So is the ability to make and use weaponry. Or do you really think it matters if someone gets killed by an optic blast instead of a bullet?" Gilaad challenged. "I'm sure the Reavers don't care."
"Or by adamantium claws instead of steel daggers?" Amira added. "Face it: you're being hypocritical. Our abilities don't have the same offensive capabilities most of you have, yet you'd have us putting on spandex and running around in a fight right along side you. I mean, why the hell do you keep throwing Doug Ramsey into fights? What do you expect him to do, translate just what the enemy is shouting as they try to kill him? It's a miracle that poor boy hasn't been killed by now."
"I can't defend myself in a fight with my powers, so I'm not giving up my gun." Gilaad said firmly.
"Just what is your ability anyway Mr. Cyptic?" Scott asked Gilaad. "You haven't been exactly forthcoming."
"Not my fault we keep getting thrown in jail or shot at!" Gilaad shot back. "You want to know? Fine," Gilaad ripped off the glove covering his right hand and his third eye in the middle of it. "My power is tied to this—" he pointed at his third eye. "When my power activated I was near the Wailing Wall. I brushed it with my hand and got a personal view of several thousand years of history and was in a coma for three weeks. I can read the past off any object I touch. I'm psychometric."
"Fascinating." Hank mumbled. As Gilaad stepped back to pick up the glove he dropped, his hand brushed up against Donald Pierce's robotic arm, which Amira held in her lap.
"Wow…I can see what Pierce has been up to and—" He shuddered. "This arm—or rather, the man it's been attached too—has done some pretty disgusting things. Why he even…" Gilaad trailed off and apparently stared into nothing.
"Gilaad?" Xavier asked as he wheeled himself over. "What is it?" Gilaad shook his head.
"I need to make a phone call." He said shaken, as he ran out.
"What was that about?" Ororo wondered.
"Why did you keep that thing anyway?" Warren asked Amira as he pointed to Pierce's arm. "A new chew toy for Penny?"
"Maybe. But I was thinking of mounting it on my wall." Amira grinned predatorily. "This will hopefully be the start of a collection I'll make out of various body parts of the Hellfire Club creeps. I'll end it with Emma Frost's fat head…on a platter."
"And people call me psychotic?" Logan wondered.
Gilaad meanwhile tore down the stairs and ran to the phone. Kitty was on it. "And, like I'll order two pairs of the boots and—"
"She'll call you back." Gilaad snapped as he tore the phone out of Kitty's hands and hung up. Then he started dialing.
"What is your problem?" Kitty demanded.
"A big one." Gilaad answered as he finished dialing. "Shut up." He waited for a minute. "Hello, mom? Are you at work? Good. Contact the Prime Minister and President immediately. I need to get in touch with the Justice League. Now."
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A/N: Just a reminder, Gilaad's mom is Gabrielle Haller, the Israeli Ambassador to Great Britain so she'd be in a position to call her government to forward Gilaad's request. Just FYI.