Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Oh man, I forgot the weird disclaimer message this time. In my excuse, I am REALLY hungover. It's not great, children.
Chapter 9: School Spirit – Part III
The next morning came way too quickly for my tastes. A few hours of shuteye had done nothing to get my mood out of the pits. Over the last few days I had run the entire spectrum of being at an all-time high and feeling as low as a speck of dirt.
How could you make what you did matter?
It was hard trying to know how to be a good superhero. Maybe that was why I was in school for it? Eh, even heroes that had been doing the job for years still had certain aspects of the life that they needed to work out, though that usually lent itself more to their personal lives.
My problem-solving skills needed work. If only I were smarter. Miss Pryde said that I was smart enough. Smart enough for what? Clearly not this.
The answer to your problems never came from staring at the ceiling, no matter how effective a method it was of wasting time.
I turned to my side where I saw Saberwolf sleeping across the room. It was weird that he slept, but I didn't know enough about how he was made to ask. It wasn't like I would understand much about it.
I debated talking to him about how I felt. What was my life that an A.I. designed to hunt mutants was my confidant?
"Wolf," I said, "You awake?"
The lights across his eye panels softly glowed red as he slowly lifted his head, "I am now. What do you need?"
I thought about saying something, but I'd been complaining to the poor bastard enough already. He didn't need to hear my belly-aching every day, even if he was the only one who would listen.
Sitting up, I got out of bed and went to start my day, "Never mind. Don't worry your big, metal head over it."
Wolf seemed to hesitate for a moment, but eventually set himself back down and settled into what I assumed was 'sleep mode'.
He was just staying with me for a while, after all. It wasn't like he was mine or anything. When he left, he didn't need to be saddled down with any fallout from something he helped me do.
After dressing in my gear, I sat down and played some video games for a bit. Grand Theft Auto Online was a good way to relax for a bit. No pressure, and an opportunity to vent some stress, if I so felt the need. Wolf woke up properly and sat on the floor beside my bed to spectate.
"Do you think you will do well today?" He asked, "It is the last day of your competition."
Indeed it was. The big mysterious final event for the top ranking teams left in Field Day. The only one that no one taking part knew anything about.
I nudged Wolf with my foot, "You want me to win? I didn't think you cared," I received a swat from his cable of a tail in return, "Ow, damn you."
"I understand the concept of competition, Bellamy," Wolf said. That was obvious. He was the dirtiest gamer I had ever played. If he associated himself with me in any way, shape, or form, my losing would likely piss him off, because mentally it would reflect on him in some way, "Do you believe you can focus enough to perform well?"
"I guess we'll find out," I said, getting up and handing the controller over to Saberwolf's tail, "Don't play on my character if you're not going to get me a tank. I made another one for you for a reason," He looked at the controller before setting it down, "You don't want to play?"
Wolf shook his head and stood up, "I would like to watch the end of your competition. I am... curious," He had gone along with us yesterday to watch as well. He kept to himself
"Sure. We could use a cheerleader," I said gesturing for him to follow me to the competition site, "Want to compete?"
Saberwolf let out what passed as a sigh from him, "...Were it possible? Yes," He admitted, seemingly depressed by that fact, "However, it is too late for me to join any squads. Also, I am neither a mutant, making me ineligible to be a student."
If he had been eligible and would have joined, we would have had Field Day in the bag by the end of the second day. Alas, it was not to be so.
As we started out from my room, I took to flattering him. He was proud, which I thought was supposed to be something beneath higher intelligence, "For what it's worth, I'm pretty sure you'd literally shred any kid we're facing today, which probably isn't allowed."
"True," Wolf mentioned. His mood actually seemed to improve after I said what I did, "It would not be a very sporting competition were I involved."
It was official. My wolf-bot had an ego. A big one. I suppose I should have gotten wind of the signs sooner.
XxX
When I met up with my teammates outside of the main building of the institute, there was an air of finality between the four of us. It was the last day, our last chance to win, or so much as even medal. We'd gotten this close. Sealing the deal was by no means out of the question.
As we approached, Wolf walked over to Ruth. She stooped down and wrapped him up in a big hug around his neck. Oddly enough, he just let her do it. Those two got along well enough, which was good, and it made sense. They had the common ground of having been caught by the same assholes who wanted to harm and exploit them.
Hugging Wolf was dangerous enough in its own right. Even if he wasn't doing anything, he was still covered in lots of sharp objects, "Good morning, Saberwolf. She is happy to see you, yes!" Ruth said in greeting.
I was astounded at first, until I remembered that he had also been nice to Cessily from the Hellions, and to Megan from the Paragons. He must have had a thing for girls. Either that, or the people who taught him had also passed on the impression that he had to treat girls better than guys.
Eddie stepped forward and took off into the air with a booming step, "Whoo! Moment of truth! Ladies and gentleman, are you ready!?" He exclaimed as he shot into the air before propelling himself downward, stopping just short of touching the ground, Mission Impossible-style, "I said, are!? You!? Ready!?" He cut a flip for style points and lunged over at Hisako to grab her shoulders and shake her, "It's winning time! Are you ready!?"
Hisako's voice reverberated with every sudden jerk she received, "I've been ready, now get off of me already!" She said, managing to shove Eddie off of herself.
Eddie just laughed out loud. He clearly felt good today. And why not? This was the closest he had ever felt to being the one thing he wanted to be – one of the X-Men, "Dude! Are you ready? It's time to become the most badass kids at school!"
I wished I could have shared the feeling with him. On any other day, I probably would have been right there in his face, getting hyped and screaming right along with him. That is not what I did.
In a much more reserved manner than expected by the others, given the circumstances, I gave my answer, "I mean... we're going in there either way, so let's just get it done."
Underwhelming, to say the least.
Everyone was silent at first, as if they didn't know how to process something about what I'd said. I didn't get it. It wasn't like I said something to rile anyone up. Never one to bite his tongue, Eddie thankfully let me know what the problem was.
"'Just get it done'?" Eddie parroted, as though it didn't make sense that I wasn't pumped, "What's going on with you?" He asked me, seeing that I was less than enthused. We had a legitimate chance to win the whole thing, and I was miles away, "What happened to 'war-time general' Bellamy? We need that guy this time. This is it, man!"
"I'm still that guy!" I shouted, thumping myself hard on the chest, "I'm a stallion! I should be owned by a goddamn Middle Eastern sheik."
Eddie scoffed, clearly trying to get a rise out of me. It worked, "You were until yesterday, when Gambit hit you in the head and you remembered you were-."
I stopped him before he could finish, "If you say 'scared of the Danger Room,' you'd better remember I can hit a moving target," I said. Flying wasn't going to save him if that came out of his mouth.
Nobody was going to question whether or not I was ready for action. There was no spirit of the timid deer in my soul, and I would not entertain any opinions to the contrary. Compartmentalization was the key. When the lights came on and the main event started, I was pure money. Everyone knew this, except for the ones who didn't care... which was most people, honestly.
Hisako elbowed me from the side and spoke up, "I miss the old Bel. Charged-up gold Bel."
She rhymed. I didn't know why at first. By the time I did, it was too late, "Oh don't you dare-," Eddie was already in on it. To his credit, he followed right up, too quickly for me to shut it down.
Eddie threw an arm over my shoulder and shook me, "Gets on a roll Bel. Unrealistic goals Bel."
Hisako poked me on my other side, "We don't need the gloom and doom Bel. Afraid of the Danger Room Bel," Dear lord, they were taking turns.
"We need the put you in your place Bel. Shoot Hellion in the face Bel," Eddie said.
"Talk ya into buying land Bel. Gets too beat up to stand Bel."
"Lets Armor throw him like him 'woosh' Bel. Everybody's favorite douche Bel."
"I miss the teacher's pet Bel. Only one who can fly a jet Bel."
"The straight ready to strut Bel," Eddie stopped, seemingly at a loss, "Uh... always looking at girls' butts Bel."
That was where Hisako cut the whole thing off, "Annnnd it's dead. You killed it. Way to go, Eddie," It could have only gone on for so long, but even I saw it ending after that.
"What? I thought that was good," Eddie said in his own defense, "I was also running out of stuff to rhyme that fit him. I'm not good at this. Did it work?" He asked as Ruth let out a little giggle as she sat back.
If they had been trying to get me pumped up, they did a terrible job. I cringed through every single one. Poor Kanye West, and those were two words I never thought I would put together, "If I say yes, will you never do it again? That was terrible. We're all worse people for experiencing that."
Eddie stepped back as I peeled his arm from around my neck, "I don't care, as long as it made you want to fight," He told me.
I gave him a look to question the need for him to do such a thing, "That's not hard to do. You didn't have to butcher a song to piss me off," I said.
Ruth stood up from where she had been holding onto Saberwolf around his neck, "Bellamy is always angry, yes."
I rolled my eyes and looked over at Ruth, "I'm never angry at you. You're the only one who never gives me a reason to be mad," I told her before gesturing over to Eddie and Hisako, "Unlike our other jackass teammates, it seems like you actually respect me."
Eddie waved off my complaints with all of the casualness of digging for earwax, "Meh. The squad leader has to deal with that sort of thing. Get used to it," My entire body turned his way so fast, I might have broken reality for a moment, "What? What's with that look?"
I looked around and no one else seemed surprised by what he had said, "Wait, You guys know?"
Hisako shrugged her shoulders, as though none of this were a big deal, which it was to me, "Miss Pryde came to us about it first since you were gone already to get rid of your stupid light bomb. She said she'd track you down later and tell you. It looks like she did."
Indeed, although she hadn't told me that she'd let anyone else know, and that they were okay with the arrangement, "And you're fine with it?"
"Clearly. Seeing as how no one was giving you shit when you got here," Eddie explained, "Well… giving you shit about being the leader, at least."
That was surprising. If anyone had a problem with it, I had figured that it would be Hisako. She had just told me two days ago to my face that she didn't fully trust me. If that were the case, I figured me being in any kind of position of authority above her would have been out of the question.
Eddie gave me a hearty whack on the back to try and better shape me up, "Well, you ready to go, Patton?" He asked.
I was still a mite grumpy. But Eddie did enough to get me to brighten up a bit, "I can't be Patton. My plans don't have enough tanks in them... unless we're counting Hisako," I said.
"Oh, ha-ha. You're not funny," Damn woman. Always no-selling my jokes. That had actually been a decent one in my opinion.
And with that, as a team, we made our way down into the bowels of the Xavier Institute.
Overall Standings
1st Place: New Mutants – 8.9
2nd Place: Hellions – 8.8
3rd Place: Paladins – 8.5
4th Place: Paragons – 8.2
5th Place: Corsairs – 8.1
Everyone heading to the site of the final challenge was able to get a look at the scores.
Our scores during day two's team events hadn't moved our meter one way or the other. We kept the same 8.5 overall score we'd gotten from our efforts on day one, which was still very much something we could work with. The Hellions had passed us with a higher score, but the New Mutants' score had dropped. Even so, we were right there. 0.4 points away from first place.
We were so close, Eddie could taste it. I know he could.
I didn't blame him for being all fired up, but my heart wasn't in it. Not all the way. The night before had stuck with me, and because of how the last day's main event would go down, I couldn't find it in me to put it to the back of my mind.
How could I? For the last event, we would all be stuck inside of the very place that I mistrusted with all of my heart and soul.
I had tried to do something about it, but you can't fight the system. Well, I couldn't. Not when the system had mutants with infinitely more battle and strategy experience than me. I had no idea how far my powers actually allowed me to go. I had been a superhero-in-training for a handful of months. I didn't understand anything about how to get my way living this life.
If I had, there were so many other things I could have done. There were other ways I could have tried to show that the Danger Room was a threat. There were other ways I could have found a way to get the damn thing shut down.
But I didn't, because I didn't think of them. I didn't know.
Didn't. Didn't. Didn't. I hate that word. I always have. It was the most personal version of 'could have, would have, should have'. It was the ultimate word synonymous with failure that could have been avoided. Synonymous with defeat. And of course, that was important.
...You know. Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.
Normally, that would have also included Field Day, but now not so much. Because if losing one's life was on the table, that was a more significant loss.
I was still not happy about doing this, but I was more afraid of not being there and something going wrong. Plus, I couldn't let my team down. They had been salivating at this chance for months.
XxX
The top five ranking teams were all included in the final event. It was the last chance for any team to take a jump in the rankings and medal, or even win the whole thing, and everyone involved had come with their working boots on.
All of us gathered outside of the Danger Room where Mister Summers stood in his X-Men gear. The Corsairs were his team, so I thought that it was a conflict of interest for him to be proctoring this thing, but if he was the leader of the X-Men, it was probably to put an official face to the final competition.
The Corsairs consisted of a full six student team. Three very hot blonde triplets, all telepaths with some freaky hive mind thing going on – Celeste, Mindee, and Phoebe, the Stepford Cuckoos, also known as the Three-in-One. A tall girl with pink skin and pointed elf ears, of whom I had no idea what her powers were – Callie Betto, Dryad. A short dude covered in quills like a human-porcupine hybrid – Maxwell Jordan, Quill. And some mostly unassuming-looking blond guy – Dallas Gibson, Specter.
I didn't know any of them, personally. No classes or anything. The only reason I knew the Cuckoos' powers was because it was obvious. That, and everyone knew who they were in the first place. But screw that. We had our own telepath. Quality, not quantity.
...Though, they were all probably stronger than Ruth was when they were working together.
The Paladins were the only team that didn't have a full six. We were down two people compared to everyone else.
Looking around, I realized, it was amazing that we had even managed to make it this far.
From the finalists, we had the teacher's pet team in the New Mutants, the top-of-the-food-chain hand-picked chosen ones jock team in the Hellions, and more. It was entirely reasonable to hang one's hat on going that far.
Of course, that was loser talk.
There was a decided lack of shit talking going on, despite how hotly contested the entire Field Day experience had been. Mostly because everyone's boss-man was standing ten feet away, keeping a watchful eye on all of us.
The man in question, Mister Summers, coughed into his hand to get our attention and began to speak, "First, before we get started, I'd like to say congratulations to everyone who made it to this point. You've all trained hard, worked well together, and learned as much as you could from your advisors. But we can only have one winning team."
"-Which will be the Hellions, naturally," Julian said under his breath, but loud enough to be heard over the dead silence of everyone else.
Mister Summers heard him and walked right over, looming over Julian and staring right at him behind the visor on his face. Getting a staredown from Cyclops was a pretty intimidating prospect, "Oh, I didn't know you had precognition. I figured that would be something you would share with Emma," He said, before turning to the rest of us, "Well, you heard Hellion, everyone. You can all just go back to your dorms. Field Day might as well be over."
Everyone took that moment to boo and heap trash-talk on Julian, and by extension the rest of his team.
Noriko snickered over from where she was standing with the rest of her New Mutants team, "Way to go, Keller. Now it's not just me. Everyone's gonna be looking to shit-can you during the finals," By now I had noticed that she had beef with Julian, which could have been for just about anything, given his personality. Even so, she seemed to take marked satisfaction in seeing him shut down. It was probably the only reason she'd bothered to learn my name before.
"Some people just can't handle the truth," Julian shot back, before wincing at a pinch from Cessily, "Ow! Cess!" Metal fingernails on human skin probably did hurt, to be fair, "Why!?"
Cessily was unforgiving in her rebuke, "Don't go setting people off before this whole thing even starts. Do you want everyone to try and take us out first?" Being in second place overall would have made them enough of a target as it was.
Mister Summers was able to wrangle control back and quickly get us all quiet again, "Now if we're through with variety hour, I'm going to explain the rules," That was all he needed to say to get us to shut up, "This is a team free-for-all, but with certain parameters you have to adhere to if you want to come out on top."
You could have heard a pin drop. No one was being a smartass. No one was ignoring his instructions. The words that would come out of his mouth explaining just how all of this would work was like precious oxygen.
All eyes were on him. He knew it, so he went on ahead, "It's a point-based system. To score a point, you must capture an objective and hold onto it until the end of the 60 minute time period. Objectives are small objects that you have to keep on you for it to count as being in your team's possession. There are 10 available objectives in total. All individual objectives are worth one point. The team with the most points receives the highest score – 10," He said, "You can use whatever means you see fit to obtain an objective and keep it away from the other teams. Does anyone have any questions?"
No one did. The scores were all so close that whoever won and got the normal ten points for winning would be the 1st place team. No one wanted to ask how points would be distributed among the other teams. It was irrelevant. First place was the only place that mattered.
The doors to the Danger Room opened. I tried not to flinch. I really didn't want to go in there.
You don't understand just from me telling you. Most people who hear about it just think it's a high-tech obstacle course. Most of them also didn't have to go through the sheer terror I felt when it went out of control. It hurts. When you get hit it's for real. Even with the countermeasures in place, if something goes wrong, you can still be killed.
The room was trying to break its countermeasures so that it could do us in itself. But until then, all it could do was wait for one of us to mess up badly enough because of its meddling to off ourselves.
Mister Summers went in first and gestured for the rest of us to follow, "The final competition begins at 1200 hours. You've got ten minutes to get your last preparations ready," He held a bunch of compass-looking devices in his hands, "Each team that enters gets one of these. They'll help you find the objectives."
All of us went inside and headed off to our own little sections to huddle up. I rubbed my chin, trying to block out how I felt. Compartmentalization, like I said. There was a time and a place for everything. You could only deal with what was in your control, "Okay. Let's put our heads together and put something together here. I don't think winging it is gonna work this time."
Ruth seemed motivated. She stood tall and shifted her feet in excitement, "She wants to win, yes. Pardon. Tell her what to do, and she will try her best."
"Damn straight," Eddie followed up, giving Ruth a nudge of encouragement, "This sounds like a big old clusterfuck. What do you guys think?"
Hisako crossed her arms, trying to size up just where we stood among the others competing, "Dunno. We're the only team in this thing with any less than six. Any ideas, Sol?"
I looked around at the other teams. There were things that we could do that others couldn't, but to a man, if it came down to it, the team sizes would make the difference in anyone else's favor. A straight fight would be the worst thing we could find ourselves in, even if we were better.
I made my decision on how we were going to handle the competition, "Don't go for any objectives. If we do, everyone'll just target us because they all have the numbers advantage," I said, "Just hang back until they start divvying up some of the points and pick each other apart a bit. Then we take our shot."
We would go down early to take attention off of us and observe. From there we could start actively working to win.
Hisako's brow furrowed in worry, "Are you sure?" She asked, "We have to get the most here and now if we want to even think about winning Field Day. Shouldn't we use every second we can for that?"
She had a point. Needless to say, there would be one or two teams that would take the full-court press approach straight out of the gate. Even so, that wouldn't work for us, "This thing lasts thirty minutes, no matter what. Once we get enough, we'll get worn down trying to hold on to what we do get," I said, giving her my reasoning, "I say we scavenge. Pick up the scraps. Unless you want to be a fat, juicy target with lots of points for the bad guys to come after the whole time we're fighting."
When it got down to the final few minutes, it would be a mad dash trying to pick off anyone with a significant number of points. If that just so happened to be us, we were not equipped to fend off a multi-pronged attack coming from all sides.
What we could do was slip through all of the chaos and make plays that counted when no one was paying attention to us.
Either the hunter or the hunted. The lean, hungry predator, or the slow, overfed prey. Those were our choices. I knew which one I preferred. It wasn't the hero option, but I would have rather won than looked cool. Especially because no one would remember how we won, just that we did.
"I hope everyone did their cardio!" Eddie exclaimed, waving jazz hands before losing that manufactured enthusiasm, "This is going to be miserable."
Hisako quickly counted out the teams and the number of points available for everyone to take, "If everything is split evenly, there's two objectives for every team. That's not going to happen, but... theoretically, if we can get four, I don't see anyone realistically getting five. If we can get five and hold on to them, we'll be tied for first at the very least, no matter what."
That was the S-rank goal then. Five objectives.
Slowly, the room started to grow quieter and quieter. Everyone's huddle instead turned to something of a defensive formation.
Every team stood at the ready as time ticked down. Fifty seconds to noon. There had been no warning call to let us all know. It was just that everyone had been aware of the time. They were going to do this live-fire style. If you were ready, you were ready. If you weren't, too bad. You were warned. It was your job to be professional.
That in mind, it was time for last instructions.
Not knowing what to expect from our to-be battlefield once the Danger Room did its thing, I kept my eyes peeled on everything around us, "Blindfold, when the time starts ticking down, I'll be asking you who has an objective, so you've got to keep track of that in this whole mess. Can you do that on top of what else I'm going to ask you for?"
"She appreciates Bellamy believing in her, thank you," Ruth said, smiling at me gratefully, "No, she will not let you down, yes. Not again, no."
I liked her drive, even if I didn't agree with her sentiment. She never let me down. Not once, "Are you sure? It'll be a lot. We're gonna try that thing we've been working on," Ruth glowered at me. Even if her eyes were covered by her blindfold, the rest of her face reacted so spectacularly, I could feel her consternation at me, "Alright, alright. Don't get all offended, sheesh. Let's kick some ass."
"Too sweet?" Eddie proposed, holding up the intended hand-sign.
I responded in kind with my own, "Too sweet."
We were dorks. It was great. Even Ruth did it. Hell, she did it gleefully.
Once again, Hisako was not amused, "You two are going to run that into the ground," Too cool for little team idiosyncrasies, it seemed, "It still looks dumb, by the way."
I let out a hum of passive acknowledgment, "Those your last words before we start?" I asked, trying to be a pain.
She took a second or two to honestly think about it and answer, "Actually no. Don't shoot anymore Lux Bombs."
I was unfamiliar with the term. I'd certainly never said it before. What did 'lux' even mean? And how did I make a bomb for it? "What's a Lux Bomb?"
Hisako looked at me like I was stupid for being uninformed. I later found out that 'lux' was Latin for light. Why she did a translation into Latin instead of Japanese, I never thought to ask. Was that racist to wonder? "The light bomb you made yesterday. That's what I'm calling it," It made sense to her, so she stuck with it, "You set it off outside, so I'm not sure how big the blast actually was or how much this room actually alters distance. Don't do it. You might kill us all."
I had no plans to do so, seeing as how even if it didn't kill us all, using it on one of the other students might have killed them. I wasn't that much of a jerk. I had limits.
I found a sense of amusement at the idea of her giving half enough of a damn to label that stupid move as anything at all though. I wasn't the only one either, as Eddie spoke up, "You're naming Sol's attacks now? You gonna do that for all of us."
Hisako turned to look at him with a grin, sticking the tip of her tongue out between her teeth, "Get something worth naming, and I might. If there's a term for Fastball Special – which we also do, by the way – I don't see why not."
Without warning, the environment around us began to change. In a matter of seconds, we weren't in a big metal room anymore. We were in a thick jungle. The sun was out, but there was so much plant life around us, it almost seemed dark. It was humid, almost oppressively so. Animals and insects could be heard all around us.
Play time was officially over.
Eddie looked around and immediately began to complain, "Man, I hate jungle simulations," Everyone else put a finger to their lips to signal to him to be silent, "Oh, sorry," He whispered.
I nodded to him before looking over at Ruth. She knew what I wanted. It was part of the plan we had worked out, and also something that we had been working with Ruth on for a while.
It took a moment to take effect, but when it did we all felt it. It was like several outside thoughts were all dropped into our minds at the same time. For the purposes of the exercise, Ruth had linked out conscious thoughts so we could coordinate without speaking.
It wasn't as easy to get together as you might have thought. First of all, it took forever for Ruth to figure out the right balance to keep it all together and still manage other things as well. Secondly, Hisako thought to herself in Japanese, which none of us spoke. So when she was addressing us, she sometimes had to think a thought to herself twice.
We would work like this to maintain stealth and long-distance contact for as long as possible. None of us were ninjas or anything, but then again, neither was anyone else. Any advantage our team could take, we would.
"Should I fly up and get a look at our bearings?" Eddie asked all of us together, "We know we're in a jungle, but nothing else."
"Not yet," Hisako thought out loud for the rest of us to hear, "You're not the only one who can fly. And we don't know how close anyone else is or what their view is. You might tip off another team on where we are, or worse, get yourself caught in a dogfight."
She had a good point. Subtlety was the name of the game here. Our whole plan was doing our best to pick and choose our fights after we had gotten a look at how others were fairing.
Armor's right," I thought to everyone, "But he can take a quick look. Just pop your head up above the canopy and get a glance around. Blindfold can project what you're seeing to the rest of us, right?" I asked, directing the tail end of that thought to Ruth.
Ruth nodded. She looked happy to be able to contribute to the rest of the team. Good for her. I knew she could be outstanding. All she needed was a push, "Yes, she can do that, thank you."
That was all our resident flyer needed to hear. In a matter of seconds, he had taken off upward, and we all got a quick look at just where we were supposed to be.
There was a jungle, a crevice at one end of the location, and a mountain at the other edge. The instructors must have wanted a variety of terrains for us to have to deal with.
When Eddie was finished, he dropped back down to the ground. I greeted him by handing over the thing we were supposed to use to look for objectives, "Wing, you've got the searching thingamajig. We need that," Eddie looked at the device and went to hand it over before I stopped him, "No-no-no, you keep it. You're faster than all of us. If we need to get to one in a hurry, you're our man."
And so, our approach was set. From there we had the thrilling task of sneaking our way through the jungle. The quietest person out of all of us was Eddie, because he didn't have to touch the ground to move. Ruth wasn't a slouch either. For a blind girl, her footsteps were incredibly soft.
She led the way, because she was the best person available to show us where to go. Hisako was right behind her, in a position where she could move to defend her immediately if something happened. I was behind the two of them, because I could shoot through Hisako's armor if we needed it.
We were doing recon, and thanks to Ruth, ten minutes in, we stumbled upon a quick look at some of our competition.
Other teams had taken the approach of splitting up as well, and with the way they had done it, they had no problem attacking groups with higher numbers than them.
I watched with my own two eyes, two members of the Hellions, Santo and the girl in the niqab, Sooraya, take on all six members of the Paragons. It was amazing.
Sooraya had turned herself into a human sandstorm, while Santo ran through it and hit everyone within arm's reach. Eventually, he was able to get his hands on one of the objectives – a decent-sized ring that flashed multiple colors.
The big rocky giant, grinned, despite the angry grains of sand bouncing off of his frame, "Thanks for the points, suckers!" He said before running back off through the sandstorm with a glowing ball in his hand. It dissipated once he was gone, leaving six slightly beaten-up, disgruntled teenage mutants without an objective. Some more than others. Through the sand, I saw Nicky and Mark get nailed. It was a surprise that they were getting up.
We had other things to worry about though. That had been an effective attack.
At least now I knew what the objectives looked like.
"Shit," I thought loud enough for the rest of my team to pick up on.
Eddie elbowed me as he fired back a thought of his own, "What?"
"Well, as you can see, the Hellions split off," I told them all as we started to slip away. Maybe Julian really was a better leader than I'd given him credit for, which was not a good thing for me, "The team that has the powers to take advantage of working like that actually did it. Fantastic."
Hisako dropped a timely truth and logic bomb on me,"Would you rather they stayed together? I don't want to fight that team's full line up. I don't want to fight them split off from each other."
Ruth took a moment, as though she were searching for something. "Santo and Sooraya, Julian and Brian, Cessily and Kevin. Yes, that is how the Hellions split up, thank you."
So sand powers and living rock guy in Sooraya and Santo, telekinesis for Julian and... whatever Brian's powers were, plus Cessily's living liquid metal and the ultimate bad touch from Kevin. Bad touch as in, whatever living thing he touches decays.
"...Okay, I'm willing to fight one of those combinations," Hisako told us, changing her last statement, "Seeing as how I'm the only one of us that can actually touch Kevin as long as I'm armored up, that combo seems like a cakewalk."
This was good. We could already start making plans on how to deal with the Hellions now that we knew what their approach was. Depending on who we got to first and who had a good amount of objectives, we could go in and out and start victimizing them, one group at a time.
And that was when was smashed from above with 150 pounds of claws, fur, and teeth.
"Holy shit! Bel!"
I heard Eddie yell out at me, but I had problems of my own to deal with. Namely, the creature scratching into my arms and shoulders, mouth wide open as he tried to stretch and bite off my face.
A closed mouth doesn't get fed, but in this case, an open mouth got a throat full of explosive light blast. Because it was something the Danger Room made to mess with us (me), there wasn't any gore to shower me in. It just broke apart into holographic pixels.
The cuts that it left on me didn't go away though. They hurt and bled. I looked at the red covering my arms and breathed sharply through my teeth, "That fucking jaguar did not exist a second ago!" I choked out, louder than I should have.
Eddie flapped his arms to try and get my attention to calm me down. It made him look like a bird, "Bel, shh! Use the link," He urged, even though he was talking out loud, the same as me.
I was hurt and upset, and I wanted to use this as fuel that the Danger Room was trying to take a chunk out of my ass, but it wouldn't have done anything. I knew that, "Forget it. Nothing we can do but keep moving."
"Are you alright?"
I would have been better if we actually had first aid equipment on us, but that wasn't the case, "Sure. They're not too deep." All I could do was try to suck it up for 45 more minutes and then sprint to the medical bay to get stitched up.
And then, all hell broke loose.
We were still fairly close to where the Paragons had been attacked when the Danger Room decided to spawn a jaguar on my back. With the momentary ruckus that little run-in had caused, they were able to shake off their cobwebs and come for us themselves.
A big wave of fire set the trees around us ablaze. Burning leaves up above us started dropping from the branches. We all started running around to keep from getting lit up. I looked around and could see a big fireball attached to a human body trying to hide behind some trees and fired a shot to try and pick it off. Yes, I could see you, Ben. Stealth isn't your strength when you've got a flaming head.
Hisako saw where I fired the shot and got a look at Ben, the same as I did. She engulfed herself in her full body armor and charged right at him, ignoring his attempt to roast her in retaliation.
I turned to see what else was going on in time to see Nicky flying at me, set to pounce on me like the wolf boy he looked like. Good old Eddie shoulder-checked him in mid-air, sending him flying away from me.
I took a quick glance around to see just what else we were dealing with. It was just horrible luck that this was happening. Neither of us had an objective anymore. Working out some kind of deal would have been better, but unfortunately with adrenaline running high on both sides and the fact that they were still probably stinging from being caught with their pants down by the Hellions kept us all from thinking about it before we wound up coming to blows.
There was a light blue specter darting around. I didn't know what it would do if it hit me, but I had to dodge it three or four times. It was a good thing I had already been on my toes, because I wound up having to dodge a blast that narrowly missed hitting me right in the body.
The source? Tall, dark hair, the kind of looks girls fell for, and the musical tastes that made girls think he was deep. The music thing was mostly for his powers though. Mark Sheppard, a.k.a DJ.
"You really want to go shot-for-shot with me, DJ?" I asked, charging up my hands. He was now my primary threat. Ben was tough with his fire powers, but as long as Hisako was focusing most of her attention on him, he couldn't afford to pay more attention to anyone else. Mark was mine to deal with for the time being, "I don't know everything about how your team fights, but I know I'm faster than you."
I was firing pure light. Whatever his blasts were made of, if we went up against each other I felt confident that I had the upper hand.
Mark shrugged, the sound of blasty, gut-bucket rock blaring through the headphones around his neck, "Maybe. I guess that means I've got to-," Shoot first, which he went to try and do. Unfortunately for him, I practiced quickdraw shooting all the time, "Ow! Fuck!"
I winged him in the shoulder just before he could fire. His shot hit dirt, he went down, and I felt good.
...For about five seconds.
Before I could actually follow up on DJ while he was down, my vision was filled with wings and the girl attached to them.
"Sorry, Bellamy!" Megan said before flapping her wings in my direction. The last thing I saw was pink dust flying my way. The last thing I heard was Megan's voice over the sound of my own coughing, "Nothing personal!"
The best laid plans often went awry. My plan hadn't even been solid. It was temporarily passable at best. Even so, there was still nothing you could do about those plans when you ate a face full of PCP, or whatever the hell Megan's powder was made out of.
From there... well, I can't really describe all of the things that I saw. I can give you a quick rundown of a bit of it though.
Hot girls, some of whom I knew. Some less than fully clothed, to say the least. I'm not ashamed.
HP bars, experience point meters, dialogue prompts, and other video game stuff.
...I'm pretty sure I was also a member of the Toon Squad from Space Jam for a few minutes.
Don't you judge me. That movie is amazing.
XxX
When things stopped being all trippy, I woke up facedown in the dark, by myself, with a splitting headache, slobbering all over the ground. You know, a really classy way to wake back up. The headache could not be overstated enough though. It felt like I had been hit by a truck.
I could hear the echo from every move I made, shifting on the hard floor as I started pushing myself up. I funneled enough light to my hands to make a glowstick out of myself . With the light, I could see bandages on my arms from where the jaguar tore into me. Whoever had been carrying those was my hero. The cuts and scratches still hurt, but at least I wasn't bleeding all over the place now.
Finding the way out easy enough, though walking wasn't kind for a while until my poor brain settled itself.
Outside of the cave, I saw we were in some kind of weird mountainous area. In the distance, I could see the jungle that I had more than likely come from to get to wherever I was.
There was a rocky outcropping right outside of the entrance, keeping it concealed from any overhead flyers that might have been scouting the location. As far as spots to stash me while I was a liability to the rest of the team, they could have done much worse.
"You done being crazy?"
I looked around for the source of the familiar voice and found Hisako trying to keep herself concealed close to the cave entrance. Not that it was hard. There was a lot of space for her to use, and when she wasn't totally armored up, she was fairly tiny enough to hide.
I made my way over to her and sat down against a rock. My head was still kind of spinning. It was manageable, but the sooner I could get rid of it, the better, "I guess so. So what's up? What happened and what's going on now?"
Hisako pursed her lips, maybe trying to think of where to begin. Every so often, we'd hear a faint rumbling sound in the distance. I wondered just how desperate some teams were getting to net themselves some points, "Well first, you've been down for twenty minutes."
Twenty minutes. Twenty minutes of the test gone. That only left thirty for us to do our thing. I wasn't pleased to hear that.
"Fuck!" I hissed under my breath. No more yelling. I remember what happened the last time I yelled. I brought down a team of superpowered teenagers onto our heads, "Alright, so what happened?"
She scooped up a handful of dirt and threw it over my way, "Pixie dusted you," I brushed off the dirt that got on me and gave her a look that reflected the confusion I had. As if I were just supposed to know what that meant. Her explanation hadn't been thorough enough, so she tried again, "It's one of her powers. She flapped some pink dust into your face and that was that. You freaked out and started running all over the place."
I could only imagine how that had wound up making a chaotic situation even worse.
"Sorry," I apologized. It was the only thing I could think to say.
Hisako shrugged, "Nothing you could do about it. They had more people, she got behind you. That's all there is to it," A bit of a smile came to her face at that point, "You shot Wolf Cub though. Gave us enough time to grab you and get out."
I shot Nicky? I couldn't believe that I could hit the broad side of a barn, "...How?" He was actually fast and athletic. He was the last person I thought I would hit on that team.
"You were shooting at everybody, even us. So I kinda had to clock you."
Ooh. A punch from Armor. So that was why I had the headache. Not because of whatever Megan had done to me, "Huh. Fair enough," I said, "Did you enjoy it?"
"Not really," Hisako reached over and tapped me on the knot on my head that I hadn't known I had, "Poor Blindfold didn't know what was going on in your head. She had to break the telepathic connection with you so you didn't mess all of us up. She and Wing headed off to keep up with your plan."
"Wait, they're doing it alone?"
"Calm down. It's been working," Her little smile turned into a big grin, "They got one off of the Corsairs, actually. Ripped it right off of 'em."
"Just the two of them? How?"
Hisako couldn't wait to spill the beans on how they managed to pull that off. She was almost fidgeting in place, "The Cuckoos can't read Blindfold's mind, so they can't sense her. Wing was too fast for them to lock onto, especially in the jungle where he could dart in and out. He distracted them, she got the objective and got out. We were still connected for that part. It was beautiful."
I loved my team. Hisako threw me the device to let me see where the objectives were located. Two in particular caught my eye. Most of them were moving around, one faster than the rest. One was fairly close to us.
Sitting on my ass while my team did the work though? Not a chance. They had done great. They had done everything anyone could have asked from them in this kind of rough situation, and they had picked up my slack when I went down.
I thought to myself while Hisako stood up and looked around, trying to keep a watchful eye out to make sure we didn't get ambushed again, "Wing and Blindfold know you're up. When they get here, we can get you back into the telepathic link," She looked down at me, "What should we do in the meantime?"
My eyes were locked on the closest objective I could see on our radar thing, "You think we can grab this one quickly?" I asked, "No one else is this close."
No one I could see anyway. At this point in the challenge, protecting the points you already had was important, so I figured most teams would have clumped back together to better play defense. Then again, we hadn't done so yet, which was another reason I wanted to go for the objective – in case someone else had the same idea, we could beat them to it.
For all I knew, there actually were people on the way to go get it.
"It's worth a try. Wing can fly to us. We can at least start heading that way."
Sounded like a plan to me. Or the framework, at least.
XxX
Mountains didn't just feel like they were moving. I felt confident that this was a thing. If it was, the Danger Room was a shitty representative of reality. The farther up the mountain Hisako and I climbed, the more it felt like we could feel shifting just beneath our feet.
It took a while before I realized it at first. I blamed my concussion for that. Either way, we had already started on our way. Turning back without even trying to get to what we had come for would have made our choice a monumental waste of time.
Besides, maybe I was wrong? We weren't there yet, and I hadn't seen any vents on the way up so far.
Instead of me, it was Hisako who spoke up about it first, "Are we almost there, or what?"
Took the words right out of my mouth, "I think so. Of course they put this thing at the summit, didn't they?"
"Why did they make this a volcano?"
"I don't think they did."
I stopped moving when I heard Hisako's footsteps stop. I looked back to see her looking at me with an expression on her face that I could only figure was she had picked up on what I was putting down. And here I'd gone out of my way to keep from saying it directly this time.
I didn't need to. It had been enough of a topic recently that even with the minimum amount of prompting, she was on to me, "Are you on about the Danger Room again?"
"No, I never said that," Technically, I hadn't. Being technically correct was the best kind of correct, "...But since you're bringing it up-."
She let out a sigh before continuing on ahead of me, "Sol, you've got to give this a rest," She said, "Nothing that off has happened in here."
"My bleeding jaguar wounds beg to differ," I shot back. It wasn't enough to convince her though, no matter how random that attack had been.
"That could have just been a preset environmental hazard. We don't know how this place was supposed to be set up."
"This was not a volcano when we started," I said to her. And did they normally feel like they were churning? Whatever knowledge on volcanoes I'd kept from middle school was lacking, "I might have eaten a mouthful of pixie dust and taken a knock to the head, but I remember that much. I know you do too."
She wasn't blind and she wasn't dumb. Hisako had been on this mountain with me, the entire time I was unconscious while the others were off doing hoodrat things to get an objective. If things had changed like this, she absolutely noticed.
"What else can we do?" She asked. And there it was. She was finally caving a bit. Even if she didn't quite believe me yet, the seed I'd planted before was finally beginning to sprout, "You might be right, but I already brought you here when the noises and movements started."
If the Danger Room wanted to, it could just start an eruption right here. There wasn't much we could do about it. And by 'not much', I meant 'absolutely nothing'.
Still, things weren't that cut and dry.
"I don't think it'll just blow with us right here," I said, trying to think back to the jaguar. I had gotten the drop on me. It could have taken a nifty bite out of my throat before I shot it, "I don't think the Danger Room can kill us by itself."
The thing had me dead to rights the night all of this started, and yet it didn't finish the job. It didn't, because it couldn't. No matter what, it was still a machine. Even with sentience, there were proxy programs in place keeping it from doing certain things.
No matter what it wanted to do, it couldn't just do it. It would have been like a human being just deciding that they weren't going to breathe anymore. You could consciously try, but you could only go so far in your attempt before instinct kicked in.
Maybe we could get out of this unscathed? Well, mostly, at least.
XxX
"Yeah... this is a volcano."
As if there had ever been any doubt.
Once you looked inside of the rim at the summit, you could absolutely see steam coming out, and from the center, a soft rock formation with lava slowly oozing out. It looked like a pimple that was ready to pop.
"This thing is ready to go," Hisako whispered, as though speaking too loudly would make it happen for real.
"We should get down from here," I said, once she realized that this was really happening. Why wasn't anyone doing anything about this? The adults had to know what was going on, didn't they?
Hisako seemed to agree, for a moment. But then she realized that there was something at stake here, "Not without what we came for. We're here already. We can just get it and go," She said, looking around to try and spot the objective. She noticed when I didn't speak up afterwards, "What's wrong?"
Instead of just saying it, I showed her the device. The objective was down in the dome, right there in the worst possible place to be. Whatever it looked like, I couldn't see it from where we were.
I still had yet to actually see one of these things myself, so even if I could see it, I wouldn't know what I was looking at.
While we were both peering down into the dome, Hisako took a deep breath and armored up, full-body, "I'm going to get it."
I gave her a weird look for a moment, but she didn't flinch, "You're gonna-…" I started to say, before realizing that there was no point. The other day, she had basically stood in a gravitized pressure cooker for nearly four minutes, "Forget it. Just hurry up."
As if she needed to be told. It was going to be hotter than hell down there.
She started making her way down, while I stood back up at the summit. I wasn't setting foot anywhere near the center. Getting burned by churning ash and goddamn lava was not my idea of fun.
Come to think of it, none of this was my idea of fun. It would have been more my speed if I hadn't gotten cut up by a hard hologram of a jaguar and gotten more or less drugged silly by my friend who looked like a fairy.
...You know. Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.
Over the constant rumbling of the volcano, the wind that came with being so high up, the concussion I had, and other factors, I wasn't able to hear the soft, thrumming hum that signified the nearby use of a particular power that I was fairly used to dealing with. At least more than most other students' powers.
My saving grace was the sight of a shadow cast underneath me from something in the air above me. I turned and looked, thinking maybe it was Eddie and Ruth finally catching up to us. It wasn't.
Instead, it was Julian and Brian dropping in on me. I almost fell into the dome trying to scramble and get ready to defend myself. Julian flew low enough to drop Brian to the ground and floated ahead arms wide as if he were beckoning me to take a shot, "Of all the people I was looking forward to running into in here.. can't cheap shot me this time, can you, Marcher?"
Shit. Way to go Bellamy. You had one job, and you let yourself get distracted by your friend walking into the middle of a would-be volcano. Well, at least I regained my awareness enough to notice what was happening before I got ambushed again.
"Here we go again," I said, flaring up my hands to get ready to fight. I didn't know who to aim at, seeing as how I had both Julian and Brian to deal with, but seeing as how as far as I was concerned, Julian had the more dangerous powers, I was focusing more on him, "I'd ask how you even found us here, but I don't really care."
Julian scoffed and pointed at Hisako who was heading farther into the dangerous part of the dome, "You're at the top of the mountain and Armor glows bright red when her powers are on, genius. How the hell was anyone looking this way NOT going to see her? This place isn't that big."
Well, when it was put that way, he had a point. Even so, screw him, "Why don't you go to the other end of it before I-?"
*Vrrrrm...*
That damn hum again. Before I could lift my hands to fire a shot, I felt my whole body get stuck cold. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't move a muscle, "Crap."
Telekinesis. It was so unfair. You could move things with your mind. You didn't even have to be good with that kind of power to be dangerous with it.
Not to say that Julian wasn't talented, because he was. He power was strong, and he was good at using it.
He was also cocky.
"Hey Brian, look at him!" Julian said, calling out to his nearby teammate before looking back at me, "You're about as useful as a laser pointer right now, aren't you?" He taunted me making straight eye contact, which was his first mistake, "Gah!"
It was hard not to feel pleased at making him pay so quickly, "Yep. Sure am," I said as I felt Julian's control over my body slip. I quickly took advantage of this by shooting him out of the air.
If I was a laser pointer, I was the best damn laser pointer there was. Not one of the crappy ones you got in stores. One of the strong ones that could really blind people. The unregulated ones people got off of the internet. Iris-to-iris, Julian got an eyeful of pure, focused light. Granted, it was infinitely weaker than if I'd just fired it from my hands, but it was more pure. It had distracted him, which was all I needed to follow my rules of fighting a telekinetic.
What are they, you ask? Well, the first rule when fighting somebody with telekinesis? Don't. That's it. There you go.
...
…I suppose you want more than that? Fine.
The second rule? If you have to fight one, try not to let them focus on you alone. Fighting in a team helps a lot. But whether that's an option or not, absolutely never hold still. That just makes it too easy for them to grab you or something.
Rule number three? Break their concentration whenever you can. Surprise them. Scare them. Piss them off. Do something. Just don't let them have control. It's a power activated by thought. That's kind of hard to pull off when you can't think properly, isn't it?
The accuracy and effectiveness of these rules may vary from person to person. I came up with them on my own back when I thought frequently about mashing Julian Keller's face into the dirt. If or when it came to it, I had planned out in my head how I would do it. Seriously, I thought about it a lot.
"Julian!" This would mark the second time that Brian watched me shoot his best friend. At least this time it wasn't in the face. In response, Brian poked himself in the chest, "Tag. I'm it."
Instead of pouncing on Julian like a jackal on raw meat and making sure he was out of the running the way I wanted to, I found my attention directed to Brian. I started running right at him, and I couldn't stop myself. He took advantage when I got close enough and punched me in the face.
Compared to some of the ones I'd been hit with before – one from that very day, as a matter of fact – Brian's punches weren't so bad, even without toughening my body up with my powers. The problem was, I kept walking straight into them, and I couldn't stop myself.
*Whap! Whap! Whap!*
I came back again and again until I finally stopped one. Before I could respond in kind and show him what a real punch was supposed to feel like, my arm was caught. Damn Julian, "What did you do?" I asked to Brian.
I would have to wait on that answer, "Good job Bri," Julian said as he sat up and got back to his feet. He wanted to take a shot at me so bad, but he had bigger fish to fry. There was a bigger way to screw me over than beating me up, "Keep him there. I'll be right back."
I took another potshot at him, but I missed. When I did, I couldn't necessarily give chase, seeing as how I was legitimately stuck because of whatever Brian was doing. So I asked again, "Tag, what did you do?"
Man, I couldn't keep track of everyone's powers. Brian had never used his on or around me until now. Apparently, when he touched people he could slap some kind of mental signal on someone. It would either make people go toward that person, or away from them, and you couldn't fight it.
"Don't worry about it," Brian said, "All you need to know is that you aren't going anywhere until I say so."
He seemed confident about that. True enough, I couldn't bring myself to go after Julian as long as Brian was doing… whatever his powers were. All I could see was him flying away, "…Alright."
As far as I knew though, Brian's powers didn't stop me from beating the piss out of him and dragging his carcass around. If he was nearby, I could go wherever I wanted, just as long as he came with me. There was just one problem.
I couldn't get any closer to him.
Brian took a step forward and I took a step back. He took a step back and I took a step forward. All of this was without my consent. He could see my expression and started laughing while I was struggling, "I tagged myself to bring you to me, and I tagged you to make you run away from me. That's as far as you can make yourself go in either direction!"
"Why are you laughing?"
"I didn't even know I could do both until just now!" Brian said through his laughs, "The look on your face is priceless!"
So I couldn't move closer and I couldn't move away.
I turned my head and could see Julian already accosting Hisako down in the dome just as she had gotten to the objective. That was going to be trouble. Now he definitely knew she had it, "Armor, turn around!"
She heard me in enough time to see the guy flying toward her with a green outline around him. She stopped and picked up a big volcano rock to throw at him. Julian frantically stopped in the air and caught it with his telekinesis.
He sneered at her and threw it back, but she broke it apart with a punch.
Hisako could deal with him for a bit, but with his powers he had the advantage. Not that I would fare much better against him. I only figured I would because I had the option of range. That, and if she taxed her armor too much, she wouldn't be able to hold it.
Brian looked smug, until I held up my fists that were both glowing. He immediately realized just what kind of situation he had put himself into. Luckily, I didn't really care about doing anything to him at the moment. It wouldn't help.
Instead of shooting him, I shot the ground in front of me at an angle. Because it was concussive, and the ground was too hard to push through too far, it sent me flying. Simple physics, children. And physics win out over most things, including some wonky mental conditioning that forces you to not go too far one way or another. I could feel when that little limiter on my mind broke as I soared through the air.
-Right at Julian. Did I forget to mention that I conveniently aimed myself in that direction? Because I did.
He was too busy throwing stuff at Hisako with his powers, so he didn't see me coming. He was wide open. This was going to be amazing. I almost yelled a one-liner at him as I flew his way, fist cocked and ready to give him the most solid punch he'd probably ever taken at that point. It was like something straight out of a movie.
Sadly, it wasn't a movie. It was life. And life was a bitch, because it could never let me have nice things.
Before I could get to the leader of the Hellions and give him the greatest haymaker ever set up in modern teenage superhero history, I got blown off-course by the strongest wind I'd ever been hit by. As if I had teleported to the center of a hurricane for a split-second, Julian and I were knocked for a loop.
I thought it was the Danger Room being a dick again, until I saw the airborne yellow and white-clad form of two of the New Mutants in the air. Sofia Mantego and Laurie Collins – Wind Dancer and Wall Flower.
Why girls? I thought we were cool. You sat by me in hand-to-hand classes.
Julian recovered in the air and shook off the surprise quickly enough, because of course he did. The motherfucker could fly.
I did not share that particular ability.
"No-no-no-no-no-noooo!" I screamed, falling from the sky into the dome. It was high. Too high. Higher than I had been prepared to fall from, thanks to Wind Dancer blowing me off-course, "For the love of God! Someone who can fly, catch me!"
And of course, they didn't. Because whenever anything went wrong, people just stopped and stared, even the ones who could do something about it, like Julian (telekinesis) and Sofia (aerokinesis... err... wind powers). That is, if they even cared in the first place. No comment there. Eddie wasn't around either. He would have definitely caught me. He was a bro like that.
So this was how I was going to die. The Danger Room was going to get the kill it wanted, though not really, because Wind Dancer was the one who kind of killed me. I could try to toughen up my body, but I would still get messed up in the process.
Nope.
Redirecting myself with the physics of my light blasts helped me out once, so why not do it again? That sounded like a sensible way to try and protect myself.
Only, instead of using a concussive blast the way I had the first time, I panicked. You know, I was free-falling twelve stories to the ground with no guaranteed way to stop myself. Those kinds of things happen. So instead of a closed-fist concussive blast, it was open-handed.
...The explosive version.
…On the inner dome of an active volcano just looking for a way to relieve the pressure that was getting ready to burst inside of it.
...I probably should have just taken my chances hitting the ground from as high up as I was. That way only I would have been in danger. But, I didn't. Thank you, self-preservation.
*BOOM!*
I don't think it needs clarification at this point, but mistakes were made. Very, very bad mistakes were made.
That's it for this one, guys. I hope it was enjoyable.
I haven't updated anything in a while. My amount of free time has been cut down extensively, between getting promoted at work, making strides in living a few of my dreams, and working on getting a friggin' house, I have way less time to just sit down and crank out content.
I miss the days before 2014, when I had all the time in the world to spend down random stuff like write my fics in peace. If I could travel back in time to my old self, my first choice would be 1996, so 5 year old me could have a big old jump on life. The second choice would be 2009, so I could do college again. The way I set my schedule up every semester, I had so much free time every day. It was great.
Alright, enough looking back at the past, suckers! Next time, the Danger Room has its excuse to lose its shit and indirectly attempt to commit murder. Way to go, Bel.
Okay, you've indulged my ramblings for long enough. You are free to go.
Kenchi out.