I do not own claim to any of the X-Men or their universe (just my girl Mimik) and I make no money from this. Enjoy!

"KILL HER! Where did my team go? Come on guys! We almost had her that time!"

"Dude chill out, Jamie, it's just a game."

"A game that I normally win at, Sam. If you guys knew how to play, we'd be winning."

I glance to my right at the boy almost falling out of his chair, "Would you like to switch to my team after this?"

The other three who are on my team, sharing a section of the television screen all say "NO!"

We are playing this game called Call of Duty with two… Xboxes? connected together each with their own television. Initially I watched the others play, trying to understand how the controller worked and how to operate the interface. After a few rounds Jubilee made me join in.

Now we are on our tenth consecutive winning match with Sam (Cannonball), James (Warpath), and Jubilee. The other team has been made up of Tabitha (Boom-Boom), Jamie (Multiple Man), Bobby (Iceman), and Julio (Rictor). At first I was doing poorly, but as soon as I became more familiar with it, I began to get the top score each round.

"Aww man! 23 and 2? How did you get that many?"

I smirk, "You run out into the open too much, we held down the bunker and your kept charging in, giving us more points."

"You know that's called camping right?"

"In a real time strategy that would be called smart. Now if you had used more explosives we may have been a little more worse off."

"No fair! She's got military training!"

Sam laughs and says, "If you would pay more attention to Cyclops in Strats and Tacs class you'd know that too."

Jamie sticks his tongue out at Sam and says, "I give up, I'm going to go eat some dinner."

I look to Jubilee to see if they were done too. They all put down their controllers and some follow Jamie out.

As the room thins I spot a figure waiting in the corner, Iceman.

The rest of the group leaves, Jubilee, pausing at the door to the hall, "You coming, Kim?"

"I'll pass; I think I'm gunna go find Logan."

"Oh, okay! See ya later!"

I nod and she smiles, hurrying to catch up to the others. I turn my attention to the only other occupant of the room.

"Are you just gunna call me a monster and tell me I should leave? Because if you are, I've already heard it all from ol' One-Eye."

He stinks of fear and anger and his heart's beating a mile a minute.

He looks down at the floor and mumbles, "I'm sorry."

"I- what?"

"I'm sorry. Look I was thinking about it and you're not the one I should be mad at. It was those jerks who captured us."

I'm at a loss for words…

He looks me in the face, "If it wasn't for you, I'd be dead. You stopped me from fighting them. I saw how they treated you; the beatings, the threats, and that last time; when you had completely shut down. There's no way I could've survived that."

"I did what I had to do, though most of it wasn't really voluntary."

"That's exactly why I'm doing this. I don't believe that you are a killer at heart. You haven't even hurt anybody but yourself since you've been here."

"I don't know what to do now, I mean how does this interaction progress?"

He holds out a hand, "We start over. Hi I'm Bobby."

I hesitate, staring, confused at his offer. Then I grab his hand and shake it, "I'm Kim."

After a few moments of silence I decide it's time to go before anyone else decides to rope in me into some other ridiculous activity or whatever.

"Well I gotta go, see you around."

He nods and I glance behind me, through the windows at a spot at the edge of the woods and quickly teleport.

.

As soon as I appear I quickly go around the tree and lean against it.

That took a lot outta me, must be from the session earlier. I need to practice more; maybe it's a good thing that Xavier asked me to train with the others.

To preserve some energy I drop this form for my natural one, rolling my shoulders as the tension of the shifting dissipates.

Wow, my senses must be off 'cause everything seems heightened.

The smells of my surrounding are overwhelming; the trees, the dirt, all the animals…

I can hear the heartbeat of a rabbit nearby, smell its fur, almost taste it-

What the fuck am I thinking? I don't eat random critters in the woods like some animal.

I think I might have to go talk to Beast soon. This shit is starting to weird me out.

I cover my mouth and nose and then begin slipping through the trees towards the back of the mansion. Just as I get to the area across from my balcony I hear voices.

"But mon amour! Why not just one little kiss for me, eh?"

"You know why! Do you want to end up in a coma or worse?"

Well I know that Cajun accent anywhere, but I can't quite place the southern woman he's talking to.

"Maybe Gambit willing to take de risk for you, cher."

"Who are we kidding, Remy? This is never going to go anywhere."

"Don't say dat cher. We'll figure some'ting out."

I better keep going; those two reek of something and they keep pumping out more of it. Shit, do I smell pheromones? My sense of smell has never been this good.

I sneak past the couple, holding my breath to keep from smelling them.

I glimpse the woman Gambit is with. It's that teacher that I met during my first walk out here, Rogue.

Getting to the edge of the tree line I spot my balcony above the gardens and pool. I think I can make it if I teleport…

In a puff of smoke I'm thankfully up on the balcony.

As I go to take a step I fall to my knees, completely exhausted. Why is this getting so difficult?

I push open the door and crawl into my room, using my tail to close the door behind me. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling, panting.

Well, shit… I feel like I just run a triathlon before swimming across an ocean.

A knock on the door startles me. I groan and slowly stand using my bed as a prop.

They knock again and I try to hurry to open the door, finding Kurt standing there when I do.

"Yes?"

He grins and his tail starting waving back and forth, "Hi, Kim!"

I lean on the door frame, "Is there something you need?"

He shrugs, "I heard you weren't at dinner, so I came to see if you were hungry."

I ignore the sudden hunger pangs at the mention of dinner, "No… not really. I was planning on going to find Logan, but I think I may just turn in early."

His smile fades, "Oh… Sorry, I'll uh- go find Piotr."

I rub my nose, realizing that my senses aren't acting up anymore.

He goes to turn and I say, "Wait, do you wanna- hang out? I mean I'm not the most entertaining person, truthfully I think I'm more of a downer for most people, but-"

"Sure!"

I walk into my room and he follows, leaving the door open. I look at him questioningly and he blushes,

"Um, it's a rule if a guy goes into a girl's room, the door has to stay propped open and vice versa."

"Ah…"

I sit on my bed, wishing I could just collapse and fall asleep.

He grabs the chair from my unused desk and sits on it backwards. After a moment of silence, I begin racking my brain for something to say.

"So how-" "What is-"

I smirk as we both started to say something at the same time. He grins and leans his head forward on his arms that are resting on the back of the chair, "You first."

I shrug, "I was just gunna ask you how you ended up in the facility in the first place."

His grin falters, "I was in hiding from a mob in Germany. I was in a small town looking for a friend and the people living there saw me and blamed me for some murders that had happened recently."

"Typical humans."

"I don't blame them; they just fear what they don't understand."

I frown, such a naïve point of view. "So what happened after you were seen?"

"They chased me into a building; I did not want to hurt them and I was too exhausted to teleport and so I was trapped. They were going to burn down the building when I heard the sound of helicopters outside. The villagers ran away shouting just as men dressed in black uniforms came rushing in. They shot me with some kind of dart and that's the last thing I remember before waking up to the X-men being brought in."

I smile in relief, "So you weren't there for long." He nods.

"So what was the circus like? I've never been to one, so I only know what I've heard or read about."

Smiling he says, "It was the best. I lived with them for as long as I can remember and they always treated me kindly, not caring that I was a mutant. I had an acrobat part before my teleporting powers developed. The audience thought I was just wearing some kind of suit, so I always got great applause."

"What about your parents?"

"I don't know who they are; I was raised by a woman in the circus."

One thing I can say is that at least I finally know who my parents are… were.

He shifts in his seat and then asks, "So do you like it here?"

I look at the floor, "I guess… It takes a lot of getting used to, I mean I was built to adapt, but when you've lived your life one way from so long, picking up the new habits is kind of hard. I love the fact that I can eat and sleep whenever I want and I'm glad that bastard is dead."

I notice his frown, "I don't regret killing him and every day I wish I had personally killed Cornelius and Creed too. I know you're all religious and what not, but with all the innocent people I've killed, I can't see your God getting angry over a couple more who were headed for hell anyways. One thing I can say about the facility is that bad things were expected. Now that I have people I don't want to hurt, I'm afraid that something bad is going to happen."

He shakes his head, "I can't see you ever hurting any of us, you keep saying that you might flip like you did at the facility or in the danger room, but if it came to hurting Logan or me or even Bobby, I don't think you would do it. I've seen firsthand what they put you through and I'm sorry that you ever had to go through it."

"Don't do that."

"What?"

"Don't pity me. I hate it when people pity me. I'm not weak."

He looks at me sadly and opens his mouth to say something when someone knocks on my door and then peeks in.

Before even seeing her, I can smell Kitty. Her shampoo smelling of chemicals and fake strawberries gives her away.

She smiles at me and then looks shocked to see Kurt, "Heya Kim, Kurt… the professor sent me up to tell you that there's a training session tomorrow afternoon. And to tell you that Logan left earlier this afternoon and he won't be back for a few days."

"Why did he leave?"

"No one said anything about why, but I overheard Ms. Munro mention something about SHEILD."

Shit… If he's off dealing with them, then it must not be good.

I'm kinda pissed he didn't say anything to me though.

Kitty noticing my frown says, "Don't worry about it, he goes off all the time. He'll be back, he always comes back."

Kitty turns to go and Kurt gets up, "I better go get something to eat, talk to you tomorrow Kim."

He waves and walks out the door, closing it with his tail.

Finally I can get some sleep. I quickly turn off the lights and change and climb into my blissfully soft bed.

.

"Do I really have to wear this? It's dorky and not very sensible."

I tug at the tight black leather top with a large red "X" symbol on the right side of the chest. The matching pants weren't comfortable either.

Kitty laughs, "You'll get used to it; at least it's better than the outfits that the first students had to wear; yellow and blue spandex everywhere."

"I guess this is better than that then."

We laugh and walk out of the locker room into the danger room. I look over the others; Kurt, Colossus, Iceman, Kitty, and Cyclops who is looking very unhappy.

Looks like Kurt had to adjust his uniform too; to make room for his tail and as always he's barefoot. Must be hard to find shoes to fit his unique feet.

I turn to Kitty, "This is a small team."

She shrugs nonchalantly, "Basically we're the ones being trained to be on the main team. The Delta team is the younger or newer students who need a lot more training before they're ready for real world situations. The Prof. occasionally asks some of us to join the alpha team on missions, like the last encounter with Magneto. Bobby and I went along with them."

"Ah ok, makes sense, I guess."

"Alright enough talk, let's get this over with. The sooner we get started the sooner we can all get out of here."

Cyclops glares at Kitty and I. "Professor Xavier has put me in charge of training this team."

Bobby pumps his fist into the air, "Yes! No more Logan!"

"Don't think that because I'm not Wolverine that I'll take it easier on you, Bobby. I'm here to make sure you're ready for anything when you become a real X-Man."

Iceman holds up his hands defensively, "Chill man."

Cyclops paces in front of us, "We are training in order to help protect people. SOME of you may have a problem with that, but either you learn to deal or you leave."

Ouch, these words are getting just a little too pointed. He must not be too happy about being on a team with me.

"Today we are going to work on team work. We'll be running through a basic simulation with the goal of seeing how all of your powers work for the group."

Besides Kitty, I've already seen their group work. The only difference was that it was under duress and I was the one giving orders…

Kitty bounces on the balls of her feet, "Come on Cyke, let's get this started! I have a date tonight!"

"Fine, first off can anyone tell me the main roles that you can fill on the battlefield?"

Colossus finally talks and in a deep voice he says, "Offense, defense, utility, or support."

Cyclops nods and now I want each of you to tell me what you believe your role is."

Colossus speaks again, "Offense."

Bobby pipes up next, "Offense! All the way man!"

Kitty shrugs, "I dunno, utility?"

Kurt and I look at each other and he smiles saying, "Either support or utility I suppose."

Cyclops nods, "There we go, everyone can play more than one role. If you are offensive like me, you can also be defensive. Colossus is the same. Kitty you don't really have a an attack per say and that's why you could be used as support by getting our people out of combat or you can be used as utility by helping the team infiltrate an area. Kurt you'd be the same."

I'm getting icy over here with all this cold shoulder I'm getting.

"This is a pretty easy simulation we're doing today. We just have to get to the goal point after taking out all the targets."

Sounds easy enough...

"Ok, let's get started. Begin Danger Room Beta Session 1."

The area around us changes into a field and beyond that is a small clump of woods with a large building on the other side."

Cyclops looks at the building, "The roof of that is our goal. The whole team needs to make it there or we fail."

Bobby points at the sky, "I'm assuming those are our targets?"

I look to where he's pointing; at least a dozen giant robots are heading right for us.

Cyclops starts barking orders, "Iceman, colossus; you're with me. Nightcrawler, I want you to try and get Shadowcat as close as you can so she can take them out from the inside. You're also in charge of getting people out of harm's way if they're in trouble."

Kurt nods and then looks from me to Cyclops, "What about Kim?"

He rolls his eyes and says, "Mimik, you stay here and move up when we when we need you."

Kitty puts her hands on her hips and says, "That's so not cool, Scott."

He shrugs, "We need a backup plan in case something goes wrong; she's it."

Bobby interrupts the argument, "Uh guys?"

Several thuds draw our attention across the field where the robots are landing. Cyclops turns to go, "Let's go, the sentinels are on the ground."

Kitty and Kurt both look at for me for confirmation and I shrug it off, "Go ahead, I'm willing to play his game."

They nod and Kurt ports both them towards the sentinels as the others start running to meet them. Bobby looks like he's a running ice sculpture and colossus has covered himself in his metallic skin.

They all start working together smoothly. Iceman or Colossus would get them to hold still or fall over and then take them apart piece by piece. Cyclops is standing at a distance using his optic blasts to rip holes through them.

Something thuds behind me and before I can turn I'm smacked halfway across the field.

Cyclops turns and yells, "What are you doing? Take them out!"

Suddenly I snap into "attack mode." Wraith appears right where the battle was taking place, joined by some other government guys and a few goons. I turn to see the giant metal men walking towards me.

Standing up I say, "Yes, sir."

I pop my claws and run head on for the closer of the two, jumping onto its leg and then climbing up to its chest I slice at the metal, my claws going through it like butter. When the "innards" are exposed I reach in and grab a handful of wires and what not and rip them out and then I repeat the process until it begins to collapse.

As it starts to fall backwards, I'm grabbed by the other sentinel. It starts squeezing; making it hard to breathe and the pain starts to make my vision go blurry. I use my free arm and start trying to slice at its wrist. After a few hacks, the grip starts to loosen and I take the opening to scrabble out of the hand and jump up to the shoulders. Bringing my fist back I punch straight into its head, the metal tearing flesh off my fist and arm.

Its stops working and drops to the ground. I hop to the ground and as I'm watching the flesh grow back on my arm Wraith yells, "Why are you just standing there? Let's move."

Wraith and his men start heading towards the trees and I follow. As we're walking through the sparse forest, I catch an odd scent. "I believe there may be something here with us, sir."

He glares at me, but they all start moving more cautiously. Then suddenly behind I us I hear a whirring noise and something crashing through the brush.

"We should probably run, sir."

He nods and they all start running towards the building. I stay behind and one of the how goons notices, "What are you doing?"

"Giving you some time to get ahead of them. I'll be right behind you."

He hesitates but then Wraith calls for him and he just disappears. I turn and flex my recently injured hand. The muscles still hurt, but I can fight through it.

A bunch of smaller machines come into view. They look like scorpions with spinning saw blades instead of pincers. "Well aren't you a pretty bunch?"

There's only three or four so they shouldn't be a problem. I slice through a nearby tree and it smashes down onto one of them. None of these machines seems to be intelligent…

Two of them move around to my side, not giving me many options of movement. I stand there, waiting for their attack when the one on my right launches itself into the air at me. I hack of a few of its insect-like legs off and it lands on its side struggling to get up and move.

I flip backwards and start running through the trees in the direction the others ran. Just as I get out of the trees I trip and land hard on my knees. I look over my shoulder and see the two mobile machines right behind me.

One goes to jump and is blasted away by a laser. I look up to see Wraith holding a gun pointed at the other one. One of the goons shoots another weird gun and the second one is stopped dead in its tracks.

Wraith turns and says, "We need to get to the roof. Move your ass."

"Yes, sir."

We all run into the building, which is completely empty. Locating the stairwell we run up the stairs, it's only a 8 story building so it shouldn't take too long to get to the top.

As we pass by a door it burst open and more of those scorpion bots try to come through. One of the goons gets trapped and so I stop and using another mutant's ability I teleport to him, touch him and teleport to the top of the stairs before collapsing, suddenly exhausted.

Wraith catches up to us and says, "Get off your ass! We're almost there."

I glance behind him at the stairwell, crawling with the scorpion machines trying to get at us. Shakily I get up and the others run past me and out the door leading to the roof. I hurry to follow them but just as I reach the door a blade catches me in the back, making me shout out and fall forward onto the roof.

The robots are suddenly gone and Wraith is staring down at me, visibly pissed off. "What the hell was that? This was a team exercise! We were doing fine until you wanted to go play around!"

"Sorry, sir."

"And would you quit calling me sir! We use our names on missions."

"Yes… Colonel."

"What the hell?"

I cringe, waiting for him to kick me or something, but one of the government guys says, "Hey, I don't think she's all there…"

Another goes, "Maybe you yelling at her all the time put her back into the mindset of being back in the facility. You know, like shell shock or whatever?"

I slowly sit up, looking at them confused. Come to think of it, Wraith is acting way too nice… He would've left me behind a while ago and he would've been hitting me if I had gone against his wishes…

The one goon who stopped in the woods earlier kneels down and says, "Kim, who am I?"

I shrug, "A guard?"

He shakes his head, "No its Kurt."

I blink as his face becomes blue and the other change from soldiers into teenagers.

"Oh shit…" He grins at me as he sees my recognition.

"Well that was fucked up…"

Kitty looks down at me, "What happened?"

"I dunno, I just snapped into training mode I guess."

I look up at Cyclops, "Sorry, Sir- uh… sorry."

Must be the fact that I haven't done any training combined with the fact that the guy charge is someone who hates me…

"Old habits die hard, I guess?"

He glares at me all pissed off and says, "End simulation."

He walks towards the now visible doors leading to locker rooms mumbling, "Have to train with psychos and killers. How the hell do they expect me to make this shit work?"

I stretch my back, noticing that the pain from the wound was still there. "Are those machines real?"

Bobby nods, "A couple live action ones are thrown in to make it more realistic, normally they have safety features that make so they don't do any real damage… Are you ok?"

"I'll be good."

He smiles, "Thanks for getting me out of there. Those machines are quick."

Kurt offers me a hand up and I nearly fall over again, still weak from teleporting.

He frowns, "Why did you collapse to begin with?"

"I'm not sure, whenever I use another mutant's power I end up sapping me of my energy."

They frown and Kitty says, "Here lean on me, I'll help you get to the locker room and I'll take a look at your wound."

I smile at her and she wraps her hand around my waist and I put my arm on her shoulders for stability and we slowly make our ways back into the locker room.

.

"So she was under the belief she was running the course with the Colonel and his men?"

"I guess so. She kept calling me sir and throwing herself in harm's way to make sure we didn't get hurt. She completely failed at the team work aspect of the training."

"And you don't think that it might have been hindered because you refused to include her as you did the others?"

"I didn't want her getting in the way… Then she did anyways. If she hates Wraith so much, why was she doing so much to protect him? Me?"

Xavier ponders this for a moment, "She was trying to ensure that he was pleased with her."

"What?"

"To her if Wraith was upset with her he hurt her and if he was pleased with her he didn't. Sadly he trained her like Pavlov did with his dogs. Like with the dinner bell meaning food for the dogs, a successful mission meant no pain from him. So if she throws herself in the way of danger in order to ensure that it succeeds, then to her it is worth it."

"That's sick."

"Yes, and that is why we believe that most of her more violent actions were not really a conscious decision, but a deep rooted training."

Cyclops frowns and Xavier watches as this understand conflicts with his views on the girl.

"If you wish, when Logan returns, I'll have him take over the team leader position to train them."

"No. I think I'll keep training them for a while. They have good potential to all be X-Men. I'm gunna go see if Jean wants to eat dinner."

He walks out of the office and Xavier smiles, "We have hope yet."