Alright bubs, get a move on, it's almost time." The man named Logan suddenly barked as he left the table. This caused Greer to look up from her plate of food only to realize Jean and Kurt were eyeing her with amazed faces. She looked back down at her plate and then her stomach clenched uncomfortably as she realized how much she had eaten... Three entire plates of just bacon and sausages... Nauseated, she pushed her plate away... She had never eaten so much in her life...
And…
"God… What's wrong with me?" she thought disgusted… Despite her mother's objections… Greer had always loathed the taste of meat… She had been a vegetarian for most her life… But now… Greer lowered her head. She didn't want to admit how much she had... enjoyed the taste of meat... How much she enjoyed the taste of flesh... However, noticing the others leaving the table one by one, she suddenly became aware of a new problem... What was she supposed to do now? Should she just follow? Where were they all going? Does nobody tell new students anything? Concluding it was safer to go with the majority she hesitantly proceeded to walk out.
"Greer just a minute." A voice called and she saw Mr. McCoy gesturing at her.
"Yes?" she replied shakily. Did she do something wrong? Was she not supposed to follow? She could feel her ears pressing against her head as her eyes met Mr. McCoy's. Mr. McCoy must have recognized the look of contained panic on her face because he proceeded to smile warmly.
"Don't look so scared, I just need to check on your bullet wounds for infection." He explained before signaling for her to follow him.
"Oh bullet wounds... right... The ones Steven put in me. How could I forget?" Greer thought bitterly as she touched the piece of cloth around her gut. She frowned. To be honest, Greer was genuinely surprised how fast she had forgotten about what happened. Strangely after the bullets were removed from her, the pain had subsided... pretty quickly...
"Doesn't make the memory any less painful though..." she mumbled before blinking in surprise as felt her lips curl into a fanged snarl... God... What was she doing? Shaking her head, Greer hugged herself tighter as she silently followed Mr. McCoy into the infirmary.
It was minutes later when Greer found herself sitting on a hospital bed, nervously holding up her shirt. She kept her gaze forward, she had no desire to see the extent of change in her appearance nor the atrocity of what Steven did to her... She braced herself for the grizzly sight to come as she felt Mr. McCoy unwarp the cloth. She had seen enough gunshot wounds in her lifetime, her father was a policeman and he had received quite a few gun shot wounds himself... So it really came as a horrible surprise that he didn't survive the one that killed him... Greer bit her lip and tried not to think about that... In fact, she tried not to think about anything as Mr. McCoy probed her gut.
After minutes of silence and cold sweat on her part, Greer opened her mouth.
"How bad is it?" she asked hesitantly, not daring to look... Images of dried pus and blood entering her mind...
"Well I think you need to be the judge of that Miss Nelson..." Mr. McCoy replied in an almost cheerful manner causing her to immediately look down.
To her surprise... There was nothing... Nothing at all to remind her of the anguish she went through the previous night... All that remained of Steven's doings were two crescent shaped scars that looked like they were fading with ever second that passed.
" Interesting... it seems like you have a healing factor..." Mr. McCoy said as he jotted down his observations on a clipboard.
" Healing factor? What is that?" Greer asked rubbing the scars making sure she wasn't hallucinating a little freaked out that they were getting smaller and smaller the more she rubbed.
"The ability to recover from bodily injuries or even diseases at a super human rate... It's not very common, in fact only you and Logan have this ability among all the other mutants in the institute."
Greer raised an eyebrow.
"Whoa..." was all she could say...
" Whoa indeed... It's a rare gift Miss Nelson." Mr. McCoy announced with a smile only to immediately wag his pen at her face.
" So I better not see you here in the infirmary anytime soon for illnesses you claim to have for ditching combat sessions..." he warned mockingly making Greer smile sheepishly. She couldn't help it... Mr. McCoy just knew how to lighten up a terrible mood.
"Speaking of combat sessions, here's your new uniform."
Greer stopped short.
"Uniform?!"
"Of course..." and from a drawer Mr. McCoy pulled out a box and handed it to her. "Always have it ready on the go, you never know when you might need it." He said while leaving the infirmary so Greer could change in private.
Greer watched him go, and until she was certain he was not in the same room, she finally reached into the box, Greer could hardly contain her disbelief as she pulled out the contents... Her so called uniform... It was a black leotard with long sleeves reaching up to her wrists, with a gold platelet attached at the leotard's bust area in the shape of a huge letter "X". Reaching into the box again Greer pulled out a thin belt dangling with golden metal fangs and a pair of gold sleeveless gloves...
"God this is so... strange..."
Sighing and wondering what on earth had she gotten herself into, Greer drew the curtains and tried on her new uniform.
Greer could feel her stomach turn the most uncomfortable somersaults as she entered the "Danger room"... Yeah already the name was making her nervous. She kept her eyes trained firmly to the ground as she could feel the eyes of her fellow "x men" travel down her body... It wasn't helping her nerves at all...
"God... Please stop staring..." Greer prayed as she silently took her place next to Jean, sneaking a glance at the red head's more protective and not to mention... full-bodied uniform. Greer stole a quick glance down the line... They all had full-bodied uniforms... What the hell... While she had to be put in a leotard that made her feel positively naked ... Greer curled her fists as she felt her tail swinging nervously behind her, an alien feeling... It wasn't one she liked...
"All right bub's class is in session." Logan barked and Greer took a deep breath as she followed obediently as everyone around her filed into a single line. "Today's class is about survival, all you've got to do is make it from here (pointing at his feet) to there (points all the way to the other end of the room)." "Sounds simple enough..." Greer mumbled unaware the Logan had caught that. "Sounds like we've got a volunteer. Tigger, you're up!" Greer looked up in surprised, did she hear that right. She looked around. Everyone, Jean especially were giving her the most pitying of looks. She didn't like that..." Wait me?!" she asked hesitantly, pointing to herself. "Yes you..." Logan smirked.
Five minutes later, Greer found herself looking up at her teammates who were waiting for their turn at the top of the danger room. She could see them cast looks of pity upon her and she grew increasingly worried as each second passed. "All right, your time starts now!" and Greer uncomfortably started in a slow jog pace but her sharp ears picked up the sound of machine's whirring behind her. "What the hell... Agh!" she grimaced in pain as looked at the new cut in her arm that was bleeding slightly. Looking back, she saw canons unhinged themselves from the walls...
"Oh... God..." was the only thing that went through Greer's mind before streams of lasers shot at her. She willed her body to move, to jump, leap and well do anything that might keep her head intact with her body.
"Faster!" she begged her legs, not knowing how long her fear driven adrenaline would back her up before she crashed from exhaustion. To her surprise, it didn't... In fact, the more she ran, the more energized she became. However, that wasn't her only surprise, a huge wall sprung up from the middle of the ground, blocking her escape. Greer hadn't even considered running around it, instead, she simply jumped and summersaulted over the towering structure like it was the most natural thing to do. In fact, it happened so fleetingly that Greer barely registered that she did it at all when she landed gracefully... on all fours...
"Whoa..." she mumbled in amazement before going back to running for her life as a couple of lasers missed her by millimeters.
Upstairs, the rest of the X men were glued to the window as they watched Logan's new victim brave his specially designed combat session.
"She's good..." Evan admitted, pressing his face against the window to get a better view. The others nodded in agreement as they watched in amazement as Greer leaped, flipped, and somersaulted her way through the track. They all cheered when she narrowly avoided an electrically charged tentacle that sprung without warning from under the canons.
"She's really good!" Scott exclaimed enthusiastically.
"Just imagine her on the team! She'd love it... She's a natural... What are you doing?" Scott's sudden question made everyone stop cheering and turn to look at Logan as he calmly reached for a switch.
"Logan...?" Jean warned.
"That's going to..."
" Bring it up a couple ' notches." Logan answered with a rare smirk.
Down on the track, Greer wasn't feeling as hyped as her teammates above. Sure, she was getting by ok... If ok equated to barely dodging every laser and electrical tentacle that was trying to kill you... But to be honest, she was surprised she had made it this far. She'd like to say it was her years of competitive cheerleading practice that was keeping her alive but... It wasn't... In fact... Greer didn't know what it was... She couldn't explain it... She just felt faster, stronger... Her body just coordinating perfectly with her mind... Her agility was inhuman and her balance was just perfect. She wondered if it had anything to do with her tail... Also, she could see, hear and even smell better than ever before... Every decision she made was just... instinctual... Greer muttered a silent prayer of thanks, at long long last... she was nearing the end of the track. Curling her fists, she pushed herself harder.
"C'mon you can do it! Little bit more little AHHH!" Greer screamed as a metal clasp sprung up from beneath her, she managed to evade it only to stumble, trip and get trapped within the next one. Greer heard herself snarl inhumanely as the stupid contraption tightened, gripping her tightly, preventing her from breaking free. She struggled wildly and although her arms and legs pinned to her sides, Greer still tried to claw her way out. It didn't work... Roaring in frustration at this point, Greer desperately tried to find alternative ways out. Upstairs, the x men collectively winced as they watched Greer failing to escape the trap Logan had set for her. She had been doing so well... but...
"She's done for..." Rouge commented dryly as the canons all turned to aim at a wriggling Greer. As the canons prepared to fire, Logan reached over to stop them but before he could press "Stop". He saw Greer slip out of the clasp and could only watch in awe as she tumbled over the finishing line...
Greer panted, she felt like she just ran a marathon... and although she felt herself tumble across the finishing line... She wasn't really sure how she had cleared the track at all... She knew she was thrashing around wildly, but when she saw the canon aimed at her face, she thought she was done for... And then... Her body just exploded with energy... and for a moment, all she could see was red... Groaning, Greer pulled her protesting body up only to be knocked over again when most of her teammates ran down and bear hugged her. Much to her surprise... Who'd hug a weird cat freak like her?
"Ehrfürchtig! Awesome! How did you get out?" Kurt asked still amazed by what he just saw. Greer blinked.
"I don't know..." she admitted truthfully.
"Well whatever you did, it was awesome! Totally cool! I mean..."
"Not bad." A voice interrupted, causing Greer to turn and see Logan smiling at her.
" Not the best I've seen yet bub, but not bad Tigger, not bad at all." It took Greer almost a minute to absorb that the compliment was directed to her before she laughed weakly, she might actually like this place after all...