Written by Darkstorm5000
Disclaimer: X-Men Evolution, the X-Men, and other related characters in their various incarnations are the property of Marvel Entertainment Group and Film Roman Productions, are used without permission and not for profit.
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Chapter 2- Are You Experienced?
In what had become a fairly monotonous routine for them in a surprisingly short amount of time, the five individuals recently assembled together by Professor Charles Xavier to help him fight for his dream of a world safe for them, and for individuals like them also born with extraordinary powers, were all once again hard at work in the Danger Room training complex that their new mentor had constructed far beneath his mansion estate. It is here that the X-Men now spend the majority of their days, day after day, incessantly working to develop their mutant skills and make themselves into a vital and effective defense force for all of mankind, which Professor X is confident that they will in fact one day become.
And, while they've all made considerable strides with regards to their individual proficiency in controlling their unique powers, a casual glance into their current training session would just as plainly reveal that these X-Men still have quite a ways to go, especially when it comes to them learning how to operate together as a cohesive unit.
"Remember, X-Men, that the objective of today's training session is for you to successfully complete it within the allotted time parameters. Or, you will all have to repeat this exercise from the beginning. Again." Professor Xavier unhesitatingly reminded his students', as he relayed his directive to them from a microphone in the control booth above, which was broadcast throughout the entire Danger Room via its monotone-sounding loudspeakers.
Meanwhile Storm, Morph, Wolverine, Thunderbird, and Sunfire each trudged on, attempting to drown the very thought out of their minds of possibly having to repeat this particular simulation if they failed.
Again.
Moving both by foot, as well as through the air, these novice X-Men proceeded through the Danger Room's mechanized obstacle course that had been laid out before them, doing so with a cautious urgency. They wanted nothing more than to quickly bypass the traps intentionally set out to impede their progress, and to hurry along before new ensnarements were given chance to spring forth and take their place.
"Everyone stay close together." Storm said to the other X-Men, as they began the training exercise in the Danger Room, and she slipped into her role as team field-leader with her order.
"And keep an eye out for just about anything. No tellin' what the Prof's got up his sleeve for us this time." Wolverine advisedly said, as he took point and walked a couple of paces ahead of the group, relying on his own keen senses to serve as a preliminary method of warning and to alert them to the first sign of trouble.
The rest of the group heeded Wolverine's advice and followed closely behind him, as they proceeded down these maze-like corridors that had been artificially created within the Danger Room, which had deliberately dim fluorescent-lighting that shone down on them from the short ceiling above. All of the X-Men were currently dressed in similarly-styled, black and khaki official team-uniforms, which were pilot jumpsuits that had been made out of a Kevlar-mesh cloth, with lightweight protective padding that was strategically placed underneath. And, while the outfits did afford them a higher degree of protection, they weren't exactly the most comfortable articles to wear or train in, though.
Just then as they were walking forward in the closed-off corridor, a set of familiar-looking coiled tentacles unexpectedly shot up in front of the team, emerging from the floor through one of the nearly innumerable steel-tiles that composed the flooring of the training room and halted any prospect of continued forward progress. With the team having decided prior to the beginning of this exercise to respond with a slightly new strategy for this simulation's go-round, Wolverine popped the razor-sharp adamantium claws from out of his hands with a faint 'snikt' sound, and immediately dashed over to the four tentacles before them. Without hesitation, Storm used her own mutant command of the weather to create small wind drafts that flowed all around her, allowing her to cruise through the air to assist Wolverine in facing this first training obstacle.
But, just as suddenly, one of those surprises that Logan had alluded to mere moments ago, now made itself known. It came in the form of hydraulically-powered steel walls that began to slide forward, closing in on the X-Men from each side of this enclosed corridor where they were currently standing. This small area had now converted itself into a make-shift compactor, with the X-Men there as its intended compactees.
"Better do somethin' about that…" Wolverine called out, as he briefly noticed the walls closing in on them, but had his attention more pre-occupied with a metallic tentacle that had managed to somehow wrap itself around his entire body while he was hacking away at it.
Which, Storm was attempting to release Wolverine from, as she hovered less then a foot above the floor up near the low-set, steel-tiled ceiling, hurling precisely-aimed bolts of electricity directly from her hands at the coiled tentacle.
"I'm on it!" Thunderbird assertively proclaimed, as he ran over to one side of the confined corridor and threw his massive bodyweight against one of the walls rapidly closing in on them.
"I'll give you a hand." Morph now said, as he quickly made his way over to the other enclosing wall on the opposite side of the corridor.
"What good…is that going to do, Morph?" Thunderbird asked, as he slammed his body up hard against the left-side wall.
Struggling to try and at least slow down the incoming steel-panel, the strain of such a task on this young man was plainly evident. Both, in Thunderbird's voice, and at the sight of his enormously muscular biceps and rippling arms as he labored against this huge and heavy solid-steel wall, which were on full display thanks to his specifically tailored short-sleeved uniform.
"Don't worry, I got it all under control." Morph replied to his teammate's skeptical inquiry, as he used his mutant ability to alter his appearance, changing his own black and khaki uniform into a short-sleeved one almost identical to that of Thunderbird's.
To further mimic Thunderbird's look, Morph then shape-shifted his own body into a bigger and more muscular physical form that was on par with his larger teammate. But, Morph's skin instead took on an orange and cream color-scheme, his hair instantly grew longer and of a fire-red hue, and his fingertips developed a clawed sharpness at their ends, which seemed to perfectly complement his face's now more cat-like countenance.
"Thunder, Thunder, THUNDERPUSS! Ho!" Morph now cried out, proving that any sense of understatement certainly did not reside within his personality.
And with that, Thunderbird simply shook his head in response to witnessing Morph's overly theatrical display. But, Thunderbird did not have the luxury of time to say much else on the matter, as his own focus had to remain on the task at hand.
Which, was to namely keep all of them from being squished flat by these ever-contracting walls.
Meanwhile, Morph hoped that his now exponentially increased mass and density would be enough to allow him to act as a doorstop and impede the right-wall's movement as he, like Thunderbird, threw his own newly transmorphed body up against it. Both of these young men were banking on the prospect that their own current efforts would buy enough time for Wolverine and Storm to clear a path through the tentacle obstacles in front of them, so that they could all proceed forward and complete today's training session.
But true to form, the X-Men were about to once again be shown that things in life rarely went that smoothly, or that according to plan.
"Crap." Morph(currently aka Thunderpuss) remarked, as he pushed against the right wall with all of his might, while also momentarily looking back towards the starting point of their training exercise.
Morph and his teammates now saw a huge steel-ball drop down from out of the ceiling at the beginning of the corridor, doing so with a loud 'thud' that shook the floor and made them suddenly feel as though they had been placed smack-dab in the middle of a movie, and without a local tour guide to help them out of this jam either.
However, also at the corridor's entrance was Sunfire, the most recent and least vocal addition to the X-Men's ranks who had remained behind to bring up their rear, and who herself had only just begun to truly understand the full extent her own mutant powers. It was during her solo instruction sessions that Professor Xavier had also revealed to Sunfire that her powers her apparently afforded her the ability to levitate in mid-air, a talent which Sunfire now put on display by hovering there right in metal-ball's path.
But, even with those recent discoveries about her own potential, Sunfire still had nowhere near the confidence in her powers or in her abilities to think that she could slow down, let alone stop, the giant steel-boulder that was now speeding towards her and her teammates.
"Sunfire, just slag the damn thing!" Wolverine shouted at her, hoping to get Sunfire to use her ability to generate intense heat through her 'atomic-flame' to melt the speeding metal ball, as he and Storm had cut the obstructing tentacles' number from four, down to just one.
But, Wolverine's outcry drew no discernible action from Sunfire, save her own instinctive response to shield her face and upper-body by criss-crossing her arms in front of herself. This still inexperienced X-Man braced in anticipation of the impact from this immense object, which was thundering towards them and about to hit her.
Then, tragedy was averted when the Danger Room's tiled-floor unexpectedly opened up and the humongous ball was seemingly swallowed whole, dropping it down into this artificial chasm created only a few feet away from where Sunfire was currently hovering.
"Sequence terminated." Was the next thing heard by the X-Men, as Professor Xavier spoke to them over the loud speaker, with his tone unmistakably relaying a hint of disappointment in it.
This followed the thud-like noise that the large steel-ball made as it dropped down into the storage area beneath the Danger Room, which to them sounded like it was then being run through a ball-return machine at a bowling alley. The X-Men, each knowing full-well that they had failed the day's exercise, stood there in silence and watched as the lights above brightened and the training room was returned back to its default state. Numerous mechanical gears whirred and spun all around them, as this steel-tiled environment was buried and shifted back into a deceptively unassuming empty-room.
Then, the silence within was broken by words spoken, not from the Professor, but by one of the individuals inside of the Danger Room.
"Dammit!" Logan growlingly yelled out, as he turned to face the other X-Men, who were all standing close to one another in a loose semi-circle, "Girl, you keep on royally screwin' up like that and next time you're not only gonna wind up gettin' yourself killed, but the rest of us along with you!"
And without him even having to say her name, they all knew to whom Logan's comment had been directed at.
"I…was trying my best." Mariko timidly replied, as she sort of looked down at the floor and spoke to them in a near-whisper. She was already feeling bad enough as it was about having made another mistake during a training exercise, and certainly didn't need a public tongue-lashing to go along with it.
"If you call freezin' up like that your best, you might as well quit even botherin' to suit up and come down here with us then!" Logan loudly said, as he insensitively chastised Mariko in front of the other X-Men, his frustrations regarding today's events plainly evident to all by the way he was now verbally taking it out on her, "'Least it would keep us from havin' to run the same goddamn simulations over and over again, until YOU finally decide to get 'em right."
But, these last remarks ultimately proved to be more than Mariko could handle, as Logan's scathing criticisms caused this soft-spoken and highly sensitive teen to uncontrollably burst out into a shower of tearful sobs.
"Guys, I'm…sorry, I…" Was all that a now emotional and heavily-bawling Mariko could manage to get out as an apology to her teammates', before she turned away from them and took off running in the opposite towards the Danger Room's exit. She then paused and stood there, crying with her gloved-hand covering her lower-face, doing so just long enough for the huge sealed doors in front of her to slide open and allow her to leave.
"Making a super-sweet girl like that cry. You're a real class-act, you know that?" Morph said, as he looked right at Logan and stared him down, this time with no humorous sentiment evident, or intended for that matter, in his tone.
Morph then transformed himself back into his more familiar, gray-toned appearance, before spinning around and dashing off in the same direction over towards the Danger Room's exit, to try and catch-up with his obviously upset teammate. Leaving behind two other teammates, who themselves had some rather choice words of their own for Logan.
"Why do you have to be such an asshole all the damn time!" John now shouted at Logan, as this imposingly-built young man, who towered over Logan at well over six and a half feet in height, did so while standing just a few inches away from him.
"Son, if you don't get outta my face real quick, I'll show ya first-hand how big of an asshole I can be when I go 'n rip ya out a new one!" Logan hostilely replied, as he stood and looked up at John without budging, or even showing any signs of backing down from this confrontation one bit, both of his fists balled up and ready to strike.
But, as the team's designated leader, Ororo felt that the responsibility should fall to her to rectify and resolve what had happened, as she came and separated John and Logan by stepping in between these two hormonally-charged individuals.
"Ain't this cute." Logan mockingly commented, at seeing Ororo come over to now insert herself into the middle of this potentially volatile situation.
"Be that as it may, what you did to Mariko was uncalled for." Ororo said to Logan in a calm and non-confrontational tone, as the two looked right at one another.
"The girl's not cuttin' it in here, simple as that, and I let her know it. What, you plan on doin' somethin' about it, darlin'?" Logan smiled and remarked, as he issued what amounted to being a verbal challenge to Ororo.
"Do you think me incapable of such an action?" Ororo replied, as she stood there, this time with an eyebrow raised.
"In a whole lot less words, yeah. I'm callin' your bluff. Frail." Logan clarified for Ororo, as his expression became dead-serious in the blink of an eye, and he intentionally pressed the issue with her.
And with this gauntlet apparently thrown down, Logan stood poised and prepared for Ororo to respond to it. But, the response that Logan would receive from her was not one that he had been expecting, as the far-off sound of thunder cracking could now be heard.
Logan and Ororo stood there in the Danger Room and stared each other down, neither one moving. Until, the air inside of the Danger Room began to whip all around them, before quickly growing in speed and in intensity. Then, within a mere matter of seconds, Logan found himself on the receiving end of a concentrated, near gale-force wind current, which took him up off of his feet. Left summarily pinned over against one of the steel-tiled walls, Logan was rendered essentially helpless by Storm, as she took her time and slowly sauntered over towards him.
John struggled to maintain his own footing within this unforeseen maelstrom, despite the fact that the heavy-winds now flowing throughout the training chamber were not even being directed at him. Meanwhile, the Professor looked on and maintained his observations of what was taking place, having been watching these events the entire time from the control booth above. Normally he wouldn't condone, or even allow, such behavior to take place among his students and would've immediately stepped in to break up this altercation.
But, given what had been building between Logan and his younger teammates' for some time now, and especially with what had transpired down there this afternoon with his latest recruit, Professor Xavier decided to make this one exception to that rule, so that perhaps Logan himself would learn an important lesson. Sensing from Ororo the true intent of why she was doing what she was doing, and in such a physical manner, Professor Xavier also knew that this display was almost at an end as well.
Meanwhile, Storm and Logan had been simply staring at one another for some time now, with Storm's now completely white-pupils firmly and unflinchingly locked onto Logan's dark-hued ones, as he had been completely immobilized and left prostrate before her up on the wall.
"You may believe yourself to be an expert on the subject of what it means to be tough. And, given my limited knowledge on what you have been through in your life, perhaps you truly are." Storm said, as she calmly looked up at Logan, who remained pinned against the wall a few feet above the Danger Room's floor, "But, you would do well not to underestimate the powers that I possess, nor to make the mistake of disrespecting them, or me, again!"
The strength of the air being blasted at Logan, while fairly uncomfortable for him, was nowhere near reaching the limits of his body's pain threshold. Then again, Logan was also well aware of the fact that this teenaged weather-goddess was only using a fraction of the power at her disposal to make her point to him, and make it she did. Then, just as suddenly and without warning as they had come, the winds that had been gusting through the Danger Room ceased and Logan was released by being dropped back down onto the steel-tiled floor, albeit not very gently.
Ororo stood there and gave Logan one final glance, as he now sat on the floor with his back up against the wall. She had unmistakably conveyed to him the tremendous level of poise and maturity that she possessed, which seemed to belie her fairly youthful age. Ororo then wrapped the cape-like cloak of her X-uniform around her entire body and sharply turned around to exit the Danger Room, with John now walking out alongside her.
"Logan, now that the others have gone, would you please come up and see me for a moment…"
Knowing that there was only one man on Earth who could accomplish such a task, Logan's instinctive reaction was to look up to Professor Xavier, who was sitting in the overhead control booth above, and nod his head in affirmation of this request that had been delivered directly into his own mind. Logan then stood up from the floor and prepared himself to have words with yet another individual, seemingly in as many minutes, as he now started off towards the exit of the Danger Room for their private meeting.
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For the next ten minutes following the ignominious scene downstairs, Morph had come up and intensely searched for Mariko. Starting off in the central living-room, he then methodically rushed around this huge mansion, before making his way upstairs to see if she was perhaps up in her room?
But still seeing no sign of her, Morph began to really worry and was on the verge of contacting the Professor through the psi-link that he had established with all of his students. He wound up putting that idea on the backburner, when a scant glance out of a second-floor window was just enough to put his own mind at ease. It was at the sight of seeing Mariko outside on the estate's ample and spacious grounds, seated at the edge of the somewhat dense woodlands that surrounded the Xavier property. Scrambling back down the lengthy staircase in no time, Morph easily cleared the substantial distance across the rear lawn just as quickly, heading towards the cliffside edge of the Institute's woodland-shrouded property that overlooked Central Bay.
As he approached from the mansion, Morph observed that Mariko was just sitting out there underneath a rather large oak tree, with her back up against it and still dressed in her team uniform. Mariko had her arms wrapped up around her knees, pulling them in closely into her chest, as she kept her head face-down and pressed against the back of hands that were gloved in black Kevlar-knit, the faint sounds of her muffled sniffles growing increasingly louder the closer that Morph got to her.
It looked as though Mariko had formed something of a protective ball with her entire body, perhaps as a physical means of expressing an inner-desire to find a way to emotionally shield herself from a world that just seemed to continually hurt and let her down. When she had originally agreed to Professor Xavier's offer to come back here to Bayville with him to, in his words, 'become a part of something greater than herself', Mariko thought that she had found a place where she would finally be accepted, a place where she belonged.
But now, she wasn't quite so sure anymore?
For the better part of a month now, since her arrival at this private school, Mariko had wholly dedicated herself to learning how to master her powers, all in an attempt to play catch-up and bring her abilities up to par with those of her teammates'. It was one reason why she didn't mind all of the extra, solitary training sessions that Professor Xavier had her run in the Danger Room. Going through countless tests and exercises on her own, so that she could get his approval to allow her to participate in workouts with the rest of the team. But, feeling as though she had failed and let them all down, Mariko had been sitting out here on this sunny and breezy afternoon contemplating her role on that team, and whether she even deserved a place among the X-Men?
Her moment of introspection came to an abrupt end, however, when the sound of nearby footsteps got Mariko's attention, causing her to look up at this incomer.
"If you don't mind, I kind of need to be alone right now." Mariko sighingly said to Morph, as she briefly gazed up at him through her reddened and tear-wracked eyes.
Eyes, which were somewhat obscured, thanks to Mariko's jet-black hair now hanging unbound in front of her face. This was due to the small hair-bands, which she normally used to tie and keep her hair up in two fairly long pigtails, having come loose during her impromptu sprint outdoors in her quest for momentary solitude. But, in spite of Mariko's making him feel somewhat unwelcome out here, Morph wasn't about to let that dishearten him at all.
"Well, you sure don't look like someone who needs to be alone right now." Morph replied, as his hand reshaped itself into a large magnifying glass.
Which Morph, who now in his temporary guise of Sherlock Holmes, was using to look at Mariko with during his pseudo-examination of her. Mariko didn't bother to protest his assertion, in fact, she didn't really respond at all. Instead, she just sat there with her chin resting comfortably against her hands up on her knees, her saddened-expression now looking out onto the sparkling bay in front of them. Meanwhile, Morph came over and took a seat underneath the tree right beside her.
"You know, Logan was just being a butt-head back there." Morph now said, breaking the awkward silence that had crept up between him and Mariko, as he too leaned back up against the tree and nervously ran his fingers through the blades of grass on the ground between them.
"Maybe. Or, maybe he was just being right?" Mariko replied, as she fleetingly glanced over at Morph, before turning her focus back out over Central Bay.
Then, another passing intermission in their conversation had came and went, before Mariko wound up ending it this time.
"You know, when I was running out here, part of me seriously thought about not stopping here and wanted to just keep on going." Mariko told him, as she used her finger to trace along an imaginary path that went well past the cliff's edge in front of them.
But, her revelation drew an instant and very animated response from Morph.
"Are you crazy? You can't just go off and kill yourself like that!" Morph beseechingly said, as he jumped to his feet and now stood up right in front of Mariko. It seemed that Morph was almost subconsciously positioning himself as a human barricade to lay on that imaginary path-line between Mariko, and the overhang that she had just pointed over towards.
"Um, Morph, calm down. It's okay." Mariko replied, as she too quickly sprang up to her feet and put her hand up on Morph's shoulder, "Remember, I can fly."
Which drew an 'Oh. Yeah.' facial expression from Morph, at having been reminded of that particular fact.
And, at long last, Mariko permitted a small smile to discreetly creep across her face to accompany her diversionary quip, all in an effort to try to assuage Morph's concerns about her. Which, Mariko knew had to be an obviously genuine concern for her well-being, if it caused Morph to react in the manner that he did, and that she greatly appreciated being the recipient of from him. Mariko then gestured to Morph for him to go ahead and sit back down, as they both retook their positions and settled back down on the grass, once again leaning with their backs up against the tree.
"What I meant, was that I was seriously thinking about just taking off and heading someplace else." Mariko clarified for Morph, as they both noticed a shipping-steamer going by in the far-off horizon, "Then I realized, where would I go? Especially since going back home is completely out of the question, which would leave me back out on the streets again--"
"Wait, who said you have to go anywhere?" Morph inquired, as he interrupted her aloud cogitations.
"It's just…well, I don't think I'm really fitting in here." Mariko confessed, as she now turned her entire body towards Morph to face him at an angle, her arms still propped up across the top of her knees, with her chin gently resting up on them.
"That really is crazy talk. You belong here just as much as anybody else." Morph unwaveringly replied, as he somewhat humorously gave her a thumbs-up gesture on his hand as big as Texas. And, did so with a thumb that was itself swelling up enough in size to match, which brought yet another small smile to Mariko's face.
"You're just saying that to be nice." Mariko skeptically stated, which forced Morph to find a way to prove that he was sincere about his assertion, as only he could.
"C'mon, would these lips lie to you?" Morph asked, as he puckered-up said lips and spoke with a noticeable droning-pitch now clearly evident in his voice. His features then quickly morphed to simulate those of President Bush, as envisioned through Dana Carvey.
It was an imitation of an imitation, ironically enough, but still easily managed to draw an uncontrolled fit of laughter out of Mariko.
"Morph, you are too much!" Mariko shrieked in delight, as she looked at Morph's impersonation and continued with her heavy giggling.
"See, that's what I'm talking about. You're the only one around here who at least gets my jokes." Morph replied, as his physical features once again reverted back to normal, "You see the crowd I'd have to play to back in there, if you left? You can't do that to me."
He was of course referring to Ororo, Logan, John, and Professor Xavier with his comments, and the fact that he didn't think that they fully appreciated the humor and wit that he attempted to deliver through most of his antics.
"So, what do you say?" Morph asked Mariko, this time with a slightly pouty-expression on his face added for a subtle, yet intentional, emphasis.
"Okay, you win. There's no way I can resist those puppy-dog eyes of yours." Mariko happily replied, realizing that with a friend like Morph willing to go to such great lengths to make her feel welcome here, that she perhaps wasn't quite as alone or out of place at the Xavier Institute as she had thought.
"Excellent…" Morph now replied, this time in a slow, drawn out voice and with a dopey-smile on his face. This generally bald teen suddenly began sporting a brunette, shoulder-length mullet hairstyle and he was now also wearing a black baseball cap on his head, which read 'Morph's World' across the front of it in bold white letters.
Then, with their mutual understanding reached, both Morph and Mariko sat there under the oak tree, this time the silence between them far more natural and comfortable. They looked out onto Central Bay and relaxingly watched the ships off in the distance continuing to pass in and out of the harbor, with the late-afternoon/early evening sun reflecting off of the water serving as the eye-catching backdrop to this semi-private and tranquil scene.
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Meanwhile, as Morph was outdoors connecting with Mariko, another meeting of the minds was about to take place inside, right above the very Danger Room that the two teens had been in downstairs moments earlier.
"So, you call me up here so you can get in your shot at roughin' me up some too?" Logan sarcastically asked, as he walked in through the entrance of the control booth where Professor Xavier currently was.
"No, I believe that there has been enough of that today." Professor Xavier replied, as he sat with his back to the control booth's console and watched as the steel sliding doors closed behind Logan.
"Well?" Logan asked again, the impatience evident both in his tone of voice and in his body's fairly agitated mannerisms.
"I want to talk about what happened in the Danger Room today." Professor Xavier said, looking up slightly at this man standing before him.
"Is that so?" Logan gruffly replied, and decided to swiftly get to the point of what Xavier was hinting at, "Because all the life-sized blow dryers in the world ain't gonna change things. I meant what I said done there, the girl's not ready, none of them are. Not, for what you're gettin' us ready to go up against."
"Individual skills aside, our greatest asset is going to be how well the X-Men learn to work together, and to rely on one another, as a team." Professor Xavier stated, as he sunk back into his chair a little, clasping his hands together and resting them up against the front lapels of his sepia-brown blazer, "Right now, developing all of you into a singular unit is my number one goal, which I would think that you above all would understand and appreciate."
"I know all about bein' a part of a team. Hell, I ran with a pretty wild crew for awhile myself." Logan replied, as he went over and grabbed a lightweight steel-chair beside Professor Xavier. Logan then placed it, with the back of the chair spun around, right in front of Xavier and took a seat in it before he continued, "Difference was those guys could all pull their own weight and didn't need their hands' held every step o' the damn way. Unlike, the zit-brigade you got me babysittin' day-in and day-out down there."
As Logan pointed over through the control booth's large observation window at the now dormant Danger Room below, Professor Xavier proceeded to lightly clear his throat before responding.
"Just give them time, they will improve. They've already done so, by leaps and bounds, in the short time that all of you have been here." Professor Xavier said to Logan, acknowledging that there was some air of validity to his grievance.
"Why don't cha just level with me Chuck, straight-up? What do you think you're gonna accomplish by recruitin' a buncha kids to fight this war for you, other than gettin' one o' them wasted?" Logan asked, as he sat in his backwards-turned chair with both arms propped up on the top of its back, "I know with that Cerebro machine you got, that you coulda easily found a couple more of us who're able to, at least, go out and buy a six-pack."
"The day is quickly drawing closer where the rest of the world will know that mutants exist, and that we walk and live among them. We have to be ready to bridge the rift that new reality will inevitably create, and with that comes the unavoidable responsibility of defending humanity against those who wish to wage war or do harm against us all, whether they be humans or mutants." Professor Xavier answered, as he spoke passionately about these core beliefs of his, "But, that which we are doing here is about more than us fighting others. It is also about forging the future, a better and brighter one. And those 'kids' that you are referring to, will be instrumental in that capacity. Their youthful optimism better enables them to believe that such a dream of peaceful coexistence can truly be achieved."
"Sounds like what you want is some sorta mutant pep-squad. Problem is, I don't fit into that little mold o' yours." Logan said, as he stood up from his chair and looked at Professor Xavier, "I'm a soldier, a trained killer, probably the best there is at it. I got no illusions about what we'll be goin' up against, what we'll have to do to for our own survival's sake, 'cause I already have a hundred times over. I'm tellin' you right now, this fight is gonna get real ugly, real quick, and you're just deludin' yourself if you're thinkin' otherwise."
To further illustrate his point, Logan popped the claws from out one of his hands, putting on display those personal keepsakes left to him courtesy of the Weapon X program. Logan then stood there and glared intensely at Professor Xavier, almost as though he was trying to stare a hole right through him, before Professor Xavier made one last comment to him.
"In my life, I have been privy to some of the worst atrocities that the human mind can conjure, so do not presume to believe that I am simply seeing the world through rose-colored glasses. In fact, I have fought in a few battles of my own that have come at a very steep and personal toll, of which I still have the scars, and a souvenir here, to prove." Professor Xavier said to Logan in a solemn tone, as he carefully ran a hand over one of the chrome-alloy wheels on the right side of this wheelchair that he was, for the most part, now confined to.
And knowing full-well what Professor Xavier was alluding to, Logan gave him a simple nod as his only response, before turning around and exiting the control booth. Leaving Professor Xavier behind to now mull over the no-holds barred opinions that Logan had just expressed to him, which in many ways resonated with his own experiences during his life.
After doing a quick psi-scan to check on how Mariko was doing, revealing to him that she was indeed okay and was currently in the company of Morph, Professor Xavier allowed himself the brief luxury of reminiscing on those days long since past, which had been relegated to the recesses of his memory. He was instantly drawn back into them and to a chance encounter with a being, who to him, was the embodiment of the very evil that he had been talking about.
And, borne out of this violent confrontation with this individual all of those years ago in Egypt, was the realization about the power and responsibility that he had and owed, which wound up becoming the impetus behind Professor Xavier's initial decision to form his X-Men in the first place.