Second to last chapter (probably)! Like I said before, I'm not going quite to the beach divorce, but I'll at least get them into battle. Thanks to everyone who has been reading and reviewing.

Some of the dialogue/scenes in this chapter was taken directly from X-Men: First Class. If you recognize it, it's probably not mine.

Erik knocked Alex to the ground for about the fiftieth time thus far today and then straightened. "Better."

"Compared to what?" Erik shot him a superior look, and Alex rolled his eyes and stuck out a hand to be pulled up. It was always a gamble doing that since Erik—

A hand closed around his arm and yanked him up with enough force to send him stumbling forward.

—since Erik had a habit of doing that, but Alex had been expecting it and caught himself before he went down yet again, this time face first.

"Which way?" Erik asked.

"What?"

"It's time to get back," Erik said. "Which way?"

"What?" Alex repeated, frowning. Usually Erik tossed him in the dirt way more than he had today before calling an end to one of their sparring lessons. Hell, you could still tell that his sweat suit was supposed to be grey at this point.

"Charles has something that he wants me to try this afternoon so we need to go back early," Erik said.

It was more of an explanation that Erik usually offered, and Alex tilted his head. "Do you know what kind of something?"

"I have no idea." Erik held out his hand, and his knife jumped out of the dirt and into his palm. "Something for training, I presume, but he didn't say what." He shook his head, adding after a moment, "And I'm not sure what good it will do when you consider that he wouldn't even shoot me the other day."

"Um…right," Alex said after a moment. "Major character flaw right there. I mean, who wouldn't want to shoot his best friend?"

Erik looked vaguely surprised at Alex's comment—then again, this was Erik; he probably had a standing desire to shoot everybody, just on principle—and then shook his head and tucked his knife back into its sheath. "I could have stopped the bullet."

"Then what was the point of having him shooting you?"

Erik glared.

"Just asking," Alex muttered. He consulted his watch before Erik could say anything else and then jabbed his finger between two of the trees. He was damn sure that that wasn't how Erik had led them into the clearing, but then, that was pretty much normal for Erik. "That way." Erik's glare didn't lessen, so he assumed that he'd gotten it right for once, and gestured again. "Well, should we go?"

Erik left him by the kitchen entrance with an order to make sure that he did an extra set with the weights before dinner, and since he'd finished the sparring session less than a total mess for once, Alex knocked enough of the dust out of his clothes to keep him from being a menace to the carpeting and headed upstairs to do just that.

"Hey, man," Sean greeted from the bench as Alex turned into the room, arms extended over his chest.

"Hey," Alex returned. "Taking a break from sonic practice?"

"Yeah, the professor had something he wanted to try with Erik, and I wasn't about to hang around to see what. Besides, I think I've pretty much got things under control now. I just need to keep practicing."

That was pretty much the same situation that Alex was in with his plasma blasts, and he nodded. "You mind if I hang out here until you're done?"

"Fine by me, but I just started so it'll be a little bit."

Alex shrugged and dropped down to sit by the door. "No hurry." There wasn't much point in him taking a shower and getting changed if he was just going to get sweaty again right after, and lunch hadn't been that long ago so he didn't really have anywhere else to be. Well, he could go bother the geek in his lab, but he wasn't really in the mood for a science lecture at the moment, even if Hank didn't annoy him quite as much as he used to.

Sean had just finished and Alex was stuffing his watch in his pocket in preparation for getting his turn when Hank suddenly burst into the room. "There you are. I've been looking for the two of you everywhere. Come on, the president is about to make his address."

"The president?" Sean asked, looking over at Alex.

Alex shrugged and hurried out of the room after Hank, for once not even bothering with the weight bench. If the president was addressing the whole nation now….

Charles was dropping down to sit on the couch with Moira when they arrived, and Alex shifted in just behind Erik's shoulder while Hank and Sean took the space on the other side of Raven.

"…to regard any nuclear missile crossing the embargo line that surrounds Cuba as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States," the president was saying. "Requiring a full retaliatory response on the Soviet Union."

Erik gestured at the television. "That's where we're going to find Shaw."

"How do you know?" Alex asked.

"Two superpowers facing off and he wants to start World War Three," Charles said, shaking his head slightly without taking his eyes off the television. "He won't leave anything to chance."

"So much for diplomacy," Erik said, and then he turned to look back at Alex and the others. "I suggest you all get a good night's sleep."

He left the room on the heels of that statement, and Alex's gaze followed. Unlike the others, he'd spent a good portion of his childhood on military bases, and while he didn't have Erik's more…direct…experience, he did think that he understood better than most of them about what might be coming. It was one thing when they'd just been talking about fighting Shaw—although it was hard enough to process that that was suddenly happening and the training they'd been doing in their own little world here at mansion was going to put to the test out in reality—but the idea of the whole country and maybe even the whole world going to war too….

Moira said something about needing to check in with her superiors and got up to leave the room, Charles following, and after a moment Hank excused himself as well with a mutter about something that he needed to finish. Raven looked like she wanted to follow, but for once she didn't, heading off in the other direction, and Alex looked at Sean. "I guess…." He trailed off with a shake of his head. He didn't know what he guessed.

"Yeah," Sean said quietly, and then, "My dad fought in Korea. I mean, he never talked about it with me, but I remember him going."

"Mine too," Alex said. "And World War II before that."

"Oh. Yeah, you said he was a military pilot so I guess he would have."

"He never really talked about it at home either," Alex said after a moment. "But then again, I guess I was just a kid back then." He shook his head. "I can't believe this is real. I know this is what we've been training for, but tomorrow we're going to war." And then maybe everyone else too, as much as he didn't want to think about that.

Sean nodded, and silence broken only by commentary from the television that neither of them were really paying attention to held for several minutes before, "Do you want to play cards or something?"

The question should have been absurd, but since Alex couldn't think of anything else to do in the hours stretching between now and whatever time they were leaving—after all, it wasn't like he had a family to contact or anyone who gave a damn about him outside of the little group at the mansion—he nodded. "Yeah. Sure."

Alex was awake well before the sun—he wasn't sure he'd slept at all, really—but he stayed in bed staring up at the darkened ceiling until his alarm finally indicated that it was time to get up. If the others had managed to get any sleep, he wasn't going to be the one to disturb them. He wasn't sure that they had, though…Sean came out of his room to head down to breakfast at the same time that Alex did, and Moira and Raven were entering the kitchen just in front of them. And Charles and Erik were already there.

"Where's Hank?" Raven asked with a frown, taking the seat beside Charles.

"Probably in the lab," Charles said. "I talked to him for a few minutes when I took him dinner yesterday, and there was something he was determined to get finished. He's been very busy lately."

"Oh."

She sounded vaguely uncomfortable although she didn't say anything else, but since Alex had far more important things to worry about at the moment than the geek's love life, he didn't press. Instead he dropped down into the seat beside Erik, and although Erik didn't even glance at him, he did shove a bowl of oatmeal unceremoniously in his direction. After a moment, Alex added some sugar and picked up a spoon. He didn't really want the oatmeal, and he wasn't really sure that he was going to be able to keep it down, but going into battle hungry probably wasn't a great idea either. And he hadn't eaten much for dinner last night.

Hank still hadn't put in an appearance by the time they'd all finished choking down what they could, and by common consent they headed for the lab together. There were no sounds coming from inside, only a note on the door, and after scanning it, Charles pushed the heavy door open. To reveal an absolutely trashed lab. Things smashed, overturned, glass on the floor….

"What the hell happened here?" Erik murmured.

It was what Alex was wondering as well, and he shook his head slightly as he took in the carnage. Hank had left the note on the door so he must be okay, but what could have upset him badly enough that he'd trashed his lab?

None of the others answered Erik either, probably because none of them had an answer any more than Alex did, and they slowly followed Charles through the wreckage to a box marked with an 'X'. Charles threw the top open, and it only took a moment to take inventory of the contents.

"Hank has been busy," Erik said with a slight smile.

"Do we really have to wear these?" Alex had to ask, distracted for a moment from the mess around them. Okay, yeah, the whole uniform idea was kind of cool, but still…yellow?

"As none of us mutated to endure extreme G-force or being riddle by bullets, I suggest we suit up," Charles replied.

The uniform wasn't quite as bad as he'd expected when he had it on, Alex decided. Okay, yeah, the colors could still use some work, but at least the plate for harnessing his powers was built right in. And he didn't look any more ridiculous than any of the others.

They took one of the larger cars down to the hanger, and it wasn't until they were passing beside a flight of jets that Alex realized abruptly that they would be flying to their destination. Why it hadn't occurred to him before he had no idea, obviously they weren't going to be hitchhiking to Cuba, but….

He didn't even register when Charles parked the car, and it wasn't until Sean stuck his head in front of Alex's face and asked if Alex was coming that he realized that the others had already left the vehicle. "I…yeah," Alex said with a shake of his head. "Sorry, I was just thinking." It was a crappy excuse and he knew it, but fortunately most of Sean's attention seemed to be elsewhere because he only nodded. Alex fumbled with the seatbelt for a moment before managing to extract himself from the vehicle, and then he and Sean hurried into the hanger after the others.

The craft inside the was cool, even Alex was willing to admit that, but even if it didn't look like any other plane he'd ever seen it was still a plane, and he wasn't at all sure that he'd be able to bring himself to board.

"Where's Hank?" Raven suddenly asked again.

No one answered for a moment, and then, from the shadows, "I'm here."

Alex was about to make a smart remark about that being a good thing since none of the rest of them could possibly fly the plane when a figure began to come forward. The voice was right, and so was the too-tall frame, but the build of the figure approaching…. Alex squinted into the light, trying to get a clearer picture, and then turned to Erik, hoping that someone else would confirm what he was seeing. Erik looked as shocked as he was, though and Alex couldn't decide whether that was good or very, very bad.

"Hank?" Charles asked.

The figure was suddenly fully visible, and Alex found himself staring because the only familiar thing about him was the glasses. The rest of him had suddenly developed blue fur, a heavier muscle structure…blue fur.

"It didn't attack the cells," he said. "It enhanced them." He shook his head, looking down. "It didn't work."

Alex had no idea what he was talking about—Hank had somehow done this to himself?—but Raven spoke before he could say anything.

"Yes, it did, Hank. Don't you see? This is who you were meant to be. This is you." She reached out to touch his face. "No more hiding."

"You never looked better, man," Erik said quietly, slapping Hank's arm lightly. And then gagged as a furred hand wrapped around his throat without warning, lifting him skyward, and Hank bared his teeth.

"Hank!" Charles said.

"Don't mock me!" Hank snarled.

Alex stood frozen in shock. Hank had attacked somebody. Hank had attacked Erik. Erik hadn't ripped him apart yet. Somehow none of that would compute, and although his mind was screaming at him to do something, he had no idea what. He couldn't shoot Hank, if Erik couldn't break his grip he certainly wouldn't be able to….

"Hank, put him down immediately, please," Charles ordered, somehow managing to sound calm. "Hank. Hank!"

Hank dropped Erik suddenly.

"I wasn't," Erik growled, looking up from a crouched position on the ground as he caught his breath.

"Even I got to admit that you look pretty badass," Alex found himself saying, trying to diffuse the situation. "I think I got a new name for you." And if he was very lucky, it was a name that wouldn't get him choked out. Erik pushed himself back to his feet beside Alex, and Alex shrugged. "Beast."

Hank growled slightly but didn't actually object.

"You sure you can fly this thing?" Sean asked from behind Alex.

"Of course I can," Hank said, turning towards him, and suddenly the Hank that Alex was used to was back. And clearly a little offended that someone might question his technical prowess. "I designed it."

"Well, then, we should be going," Charles said.

Hank nodded and did something that caused the plane to open, and the others stepped forward. And Alex froze.