Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. Logan was good. Go watch it. This is my public service announcement for the day. Also, when Power Rangers comes out, I will also be watching that, although I will be wildly drunk when I'm sitting down to watch that.

I do not have high hopes for that film.

Chapter 12: Always Something Else

Training with our squads was weird for a while. All of the teachers seriously relied on the Danger Room to put us through our paces. Without it, they had to get creative and come up with legit exercises for us to run on their own.

No one had any idea what to expect from their advisors when the new system was announced. All we could do was suit up and meet where we were told to go.

Thus, the amassed Paladins squad met on the lawn closest to the lake. Classes for the day had let out. The only one who still needed to show up was Miss Pryde, which led to us just killing time until then.

"Dude, what?" I said, wondering if I had heard Eddie right.

"I'm just saying, if we had weapons or something. I mean, what good am I in a straight-up fight?" He said, sounding completely serious about his proposal, "Hisako's got her armor. Bellamy's got his light powers. I can just buzz around the bad guys like a gnat. What's that supposed to do?"

Hisako rolled her eyes at her best friend's reasoning, "They're not going to give you a gun. Any kind of gun," She said.

"There are X-Men who have guns!" Eddie argued back in return.

"They're also old enough to carry guns," I chimed in before letting off a shrug, "...I guess. I've never met them."

Eddie groaned and landed on the ground from where he had been flying around, "Don't give me that. I'm not a punch and kick kind of guy. You know that," He said, before pointing at our resident telepath who was sitting in the grass, "And what about Ruth? What would she do when someone goes after her?"

Hisako let out a laugh and dropped down in the grass behind Ruth, setting her arms around her neck, "Turn their brains to mushy paperweights, or break their jaws instead. Unlike you, she actually tries to work with me and Bel on her hand-to-hand."

"She's not bad either," I pointed out, remembering all of the times that she had done extremely well against me despite not being anywhere near as strong and fast, "She doesn't pack much of a punch, but Ruthie's really hard to hit. Goddamn precog."

"Thank you, Bellamy. And sorry for your defeat. It will not hurt for long if you put ice on them. She just wants you to know that she still thinks you are very talented."

"But I haven't-," I started to say before realizing that she was in the middle of telling us the future. I had told her about saying things involving the future that weren't a matter of life and death, "Ruthie, remember what I told you about telling me stuff like that?"

"Yes, she does, sorry."

I was confused. I didn't want to know. It sounded like it ended painfully, but the humiliating kind of painful. Not that I had a problem with showing ass when the need arose, but if such a defeat could be avoided, who was I to say no? "...But, for the sake of avoiding all of this, what happens?"

Having someone actually want to hear her predictions for once put a massive smile on her face, "Your form on the spin kick was good, yes, but far too slow to-. Wait," She stopped. Her nose and mouth wrinkled thoughtfully, as though something else had changed. From that point she seemed to regard me with a measure of disappointment, "You do not know how to perform a... 'Superman Punch'. Why would you-," Once again, she stopped in the middle of her explanation, "...Please work more on your grappling in the near future, thank you."

No matter how many times Ruth told me a mistake that I was going to lose off of, another one always followed. Eventually, Hisako started laughing at my expense. Even Eddie felt the need to chime in, "Damn, Bel," He said, "Looks like you can't win this thing, even with Blindfold cleaning up your mistakes. Who are you fighting, Wolverine?"

That sounded about right. Whenever we sparred late at night, Wolverine seemed to make beating my ass into a science. I never made the same mistake twice, but then he never chose to beat me the same way twice either. Something about me learning too fast and not giving me the opening to get a lucky shot in.

Even Saberwolf was more lenient when we fought. He let me use my powers and held back a ton, enough that I actually won once or twice. Then he'd start trying harder. Apparently he didn't like to lose either. Another reason we got along, even if he swore he didn't like me.

I rolled my eyes at my two jerk teammates and looked down at Ruth, "Why are you getting visions about my spars with Mister Logan?" I asked semi-seriously. I still had to pick on her a bit, though, "Do you like watching me late at night, Ruthie? Sorry to disappoint you with something as boring as fighting. Maybe next time you can see something more interesting," I felt victorious when Ruth's skin turned red. She even pulled down her blindfold a bit to cover more of her face.

Aha! I knew I was hot. Even a blind girl could see it.

Hisako glared at me and turned her shoulder, putting part of herself between me and Ruth, "Gross, Bellamy. Keep your pants on during practice, would you?"

I didn't want to hear that. There was no shame to my game, whatever existed of it to be had. Screw the eye thing. Ruth was a girl, she was sixteen, and she was cute. All of this equaled fair game to me, as far as hitting on her. Plus, she wasn't nearly as scatterbrained as everyone liked to think. You try seeing the future at all random points of the day and keeping a regular pentameter of thought.

Besides, Ruth wasn't the only girl who got that treatment. Hell, she wasn't even the only one who got it on our team. Hisako did too, just as easily. She knew full well I was an equal opportunity when it came to flirting, so it wasn't like any of this was surprising.

"Well we all know where your mind went," I shot back at her. She muttered in Japanese what I'm sure would have translated to some choice curses.

Any extra awkwardness was prevented by the timely intervention of our adviser.

Miss Pryde was all smiles as she walked up to the four of us. I wondered how she could be so chipper when she had to revamp her whole training plan for all of us. That was when I saw someone trailing behind her, using Miss Pryde's body to keep at an angle out of sight. It was hard to make out who it was until she got much closer. Even then, I almost didn't believe it.

"Sorry I'm late, everyone," Miss Pryde said, "So, it's good to see all of you back and ready to go. Before we get started though, I've got someone to introduce all of you to," She looked back at the person standing behind her and gestured for her to step forward, "Go ahead."

Laura stepped from behind her. She took a moment to look over all of us, trying to size us all up. When she got to me, I saw something like recognition. She'd better remember me. I was the one who came to grab her and bring her back here in the first place. Well, Mister Logan and I.

I was surprised to see her, and was the only one of us who really had any idea who she was (aside from Ruth, who didn't count because precog). The Institute could be a big place. I definitely didn't expect to come across her anytime soon, let alone a few days after we'd last crossed paths each other.

"Hi," She greeted us and stepped back before she realized she was expected to say more, "My name is Laura Kinney."

That was all we were going to get out of her for the time being, and Miss Pryde knew that. She stepped in and introduced the lot of us, "Well, this is the team I advise. Hisako, Eddie, Ruth, and Bellamy. Collectively, they are the Paladins."

Eddie, the most outgoing of the four of us probably saw that it was a hot girl he hadn't met before. That was all he needed to know to try and break the ice. My man. I knew we were friends for a reason, "Cool. New kid?" He asked, "You couldn't have picked a better squad to be introduced to. Our stock is on the rise lately. Right, Bel?"

"Just top guys and gals doing top things," I chimed in without thinking. Just as automatically, Eddie hit me with a 'too sweet'. Damn it, Eddie was the best hype man. I didn't even have to try and come up with the absurd things that came out of my mouth when he was co-signing for me.

Hisako looked like she wanted to be anywhere other than near us while we were bro-ing out. Ruth got up and waved at Laura. I kept waiting for some kind of prediction from her. If one had come to her, she must have started listening to me about choosing when and where she told people, because she didn't tell us.

Miss Pryde continued introducing Laura, who didn't seem too eager to do it herself. Fair enough. More than a few things about her, I would have been eager to keep close to my own vest as well, "Laura just came back to school after a bit of an absence. She was never sorted onto a squad. It's a requirement for kids your age, so Logan asked a favor of me, to see if she wanted to join our team."

The thought of another teammate did sound nice. When I looked around, there wasn't a single one of us that didn't seem receptive to the idea, "That would be nice," Hisako said for all four of us, "We would only need one more to have a full team, for the first time ever, I might add."

We would still be understaffed, officially, but five was better than three, which was what the team had started with at the beginning of the semester. That was, if she joined. The way Miss Pryde worded it, it was Laura's decision in the end, and she didn't seem too taken with us. Then again, I hadn't been able to read her since we'd met, so what did I know?

"What about Saberwolf?" I asked, getting some looks from my friends, "Hey, he counts, I think. More like an undercover Paladin, but still..."

"Anyway," Miss Pryde said, getting us all back on the main point at hand, "I thought she could look in on what we do at practices. So for today, I want you all to start by working on your timing and team coordination."

We were all fine with that. Eddie in particular was more than ready to show off for the girl he had just met all of three minutes before.

"Normally it's much more awesome than just us practicing in an open field," Eddie said, "We used to have this all-purpose room where anything our teachers could think up could be made. They'd make us fight that stuff. It wasn't real, but it was still cool."

Oh God. He thought she was hot, that much was clear and fair enough, because she was. But when Eddie found himself interested in someone, he had a habit of putting a foot in his mouth. Sure, things started mildly enough, with him just saying more than he needed to, or trying to drop one-liners to make himself look cool, but from there it would only get worse before it got better. Several times since I had shown up at school I had seen this firsthand.

I had to get him to chill before he made more of a fool of himself, "She... she knows, dude," I told him, gesturing with my hands for him to tone it down, "It's cool. She went here. She's not new. Laura knows what the Danger Room is-, err, was," I corrected before turning to Miss Pryde, "Are we ever fixing that, by the way?"

Hisako grimaced and crossed her arms over her chest, "Even if we do, I'm never going back in there," She replied, not that I could blame her.

Things eventually settled into us splitting off and doing our thing with some teamwork drills. Instead of competing against each other over some sort of objective, we chose to work on team moves. The first time we had the opportunity to use anything we had come up with on real enemies had been during Field Day. Now that we knew that they worked, there was no reason not to keep working on them.

Eddie and Hisako eventually broken off to do their own thing. They were the ones that hadn't gotten to put their combination move to the test during the competition.

That left me and Ruth to work together on finding ways to use her telepathy to help all of us in the field. Her coordinating all of us mentally was fine, but what she did in the grand scheme of things was nothing that couldn't be accomplished with a radio. The only difference was that she could see through our eyes and in real time figure out what we were into. That was a big difference, but we could still do better. We just had to figure out how.

"We know you can do brain stuff to get people to do what you want," I told her, remembering how she got Rockslide and Quill to help her fight off the hordes of enemies that came our way in the Danger Room, "What if I let you consciously take control of me?"

"No, thank you," Ruth said after taking a moment to think about it, "Bellamy trusts her. She does not want to abuse that trust, no."

She must not have wanted to hurt me, or do something that I was against. I doubted there was anything someone as sweet as her could influence me to do that I wouldn't be willing to do myself. Either way, I had to respect her choice, "Okay. If you're not comfortable with it, I won't press the issue. We'll make something special happen soon. I know it."

Ruth nodded, but seemed a little down. I was serious when I said that everything would come in time, but I hated when I couldn't help her out with things on the spot. A good girl like her deserved better.

Laura sat off to the side, not too far away. Instead of paying attention to what Hisako and Eddie were doing, which was much more aesthetically pleasing than watching me and Ruth do brain stuff, she watched the two of us.

For the sake of getting her up to speed and not leaving her out, I turned her way to explain why we were working out the way we were, "We spend a lot of time working on how to combine our powers," I told her. She hadn't asked, but I didn't think there was anything wrong with explaining how we spent that particular part of our training days, "Eddie and I do this thing where he lifts me up and flies so I can shoot from the air. We call it 'Scorched Earth'."

"That's still a stupid name," Hisako commented from where she and Eddie were working with their move. He would grab onto her from behind and let her activate her armor. That way he could fly while Hisako was powered up. It fixed her mobility problems and gave Eddie some more use in a fight, "Stop naming our moves!"

My jaw dropped. I thought she had gotten over this particular team quirk of ours, judging by what how she told to avoid using the light grenade before the last Field Day event, "What the-? You named the Lux Bomb! I let it stick!"

Damn woman. She liked our team. So why wouldn't she admit when she was going with the group dynamic, "I named it first because you would have called it something stupid instead," She said.

I may or may not have blown off her opinion, "Maybe. But we'll never know," It didn't matter what I would have called it, because it had a name now, thanks to her. No one else. She was clearly missing the point of why we did that in the first place anyway, "Besides, we have to call our stuff something. It's like calling a play in football. How else will we know what we're doing if we don't?"

"It's fine, Bel," Eddie said as he and Hisako drifted over to me and Laura, still holding onto Hisako inside of her armor, "She's still salty from when you named this move the 'Flying Tank'."

Hisako cringed and released her armor, "I hate that we call it that," She said as Eddie set her down on the ground.

I wasn't sorry. That was what it was. She was our 'tank', if one deemed it fit to use gamer terms - the one that absorbed most of the dangerous stuff that came our way. Thus, when she flew, it was a flying tank.

"Anyway, the three of us all have something we can do together," I said, pointing between myself, Hisako, and Eddie, "Ruthie's powers are a little bit harder to work out for team fighting," I admitted, "Sometimes what we come up with works, sometimes it doesn't. The same as anything else."

Eddie massaged his temple as though he felt a migraine coming on, "Remember when we tried shared perspective thing? Where all of us could see what the rest of us were seeing," He recalled, "Ugh. Let's never do that again."

Hisako agreed, but I didn't. I hadn't given up on that idea after the first unpleasant time we had done it with the whole team right from the jump, "It works fine, just not with more than two people," Having Ruthie get a wide view of what we were all doing in a fight while I had the first-person perspective of what I was up to kept me well aware of the situation on the battlefield, "Besides, it's more useful for my powers than it is for any of yours... except maybe Eddie's."

Hey. That was an idea. Eddie could carry Ruth above the battlefield and she could project Eddie's view of what he was seeing back to me, like picture-in-picture, or a heads-up display of a map in a first-person shooter. That would be amazing.

I busied myself thinking through the mechanics of that idea until Miss Pryde called time for the team experimentation phase of our training, "Alright guys, that's enough. Fall in," We did as she asked and she got us on to the next phase of our three hours, "I hope everyone has been keeping up with their self-defense."

"Uuuuugh..." Eddie groaned. Hisako and I laughed while Ruth gave him a pat on the shoulder, "Come on. Isn't there an actual class for that?"

"You mean the one you're not in?" I pointed out, getting a dirty look from him for that. It served him right, "Dude, just fight already. It's like pulling off a band-aid."

"Getting punched in the face is not like pulling off a band-aid," Eddie argued back, "Why don't you just fight already?"

"I do need volunteers since one of you isn't keen on taking part," Miss Pryde said, not so subtly throwing shade Eddie's way. I lifted my hand to accept the challenge/offer, "Okay, Bellamy and... Laura?"

I turned to see that Laura had her hand up much like I did. Well that was a hell of a wrinkle. I expected to get a piece of Hisako. She was usually the one that stepped up to spar with me when it was left up to us to make the matches, so I was used to facing off with her. I hadn't expected Laura to do anything today, let alone volunteer for an exercise on a team she wasn't on.

It didn't matter to me. A fight was a fight, all the same. Though, how she could fight in jeans that tight, I had no idea. She shrugged her way out of the jacket that she wore to the field, leaving her in some awesome mauve corset thing. I could hear Eddie's eyes pop out of his head without even looking back at him. She could be as fine as she wanted to be. If she stepped up to fight me, she was getting a piece of this.

There were certain things that I had a lot of confidence in. Hand-to-hand combat with another student was one of those things for sure. I thought that right up until Miss Pryde told us to get set, "Alright guys, are you ready?"

When I got into my stock-standard kickboxing ready stance, Laura moved into one of her own with a wider base and a much lower center of gravity. Her arms were held wider than my own. Just the way she settled herself into preparation let me know that this wasn't going to be just some cakewalk.

"Fight!"

I didn't move, but she didn't either. Not at first, anyway. I was trying to find something about the way she stood that I could exploit, telltale sign about how she fought. Something. Anything. She must have found it first, because when I didn't move forward, she did. And boy, did she ever.

Laura lunged at me quickly. It almost caught me off-guard, but I was aware enough of her approach that I tried to keep my distance from her with a quick jab, just to get her to back off, maybe test her reflexes. Laura didn't subscribe to the concept of the feeling out process. She moved under my punch and to the side and gave me a shot of her own right under my ribs. It was the best punch anyone our age had hit me with since that one time I sparred with David and he absorbed Mister Logan's combat knowledge.

The air flew right out of me, but I stuck my foot out and tripped her when she tried to dart out of my range. It was an ugly way to try and turn the tide, but I needed something. Laura fell, but rolled through and turned to face me before I could even close the distance between us. She was still in what I felt was a vulnerable position though, so I swung my right leg around into a hard roundhouse kick. She leaned her entire body weight into the side taking the kick. She buckled a little bit, but I didn't knock her down, or even rattle her all that much.

More importantly, it left my leg stuck for a moment. Just a split-second. But when it did, a bolt of memory went through my head from earlier.

"It will not hurt for long if you put ice on them."

Remember what Ruth had said earlier, something told me to cover my junk. And thank God I did, because Laura threw a straight punch right at them. I was terrified and angry all at once. Even blocking, I still felt impact. Thankfully, I saw fit to wear a cup underneath my gear. I have no idea why very few others did.

I grit my teeth and spun around in the opposite direction with a spinning back kick on the same leg, but Laura was a machine. She grabbed around my calf and stood up to try and drop an elbow across the side of my knee. I saw her lift the arm and rolled to my back while she still had a hold of me. I was bigger, so I yanked her a step forward, breaking her balance for a moment and kicked up with my free leg. She blocked me, but it was a veritable mule kick with the earth itself giving me leverage. Her feet left the ground for a moment as she flew back, again off-balance.

I could break her guard, with some help, but yes, that was definitely a start. I still hadn't landed anything clean yet, but it was possible.

Turning to my belly, I pushed off with my hands to throw myself forward with momentum. I leaped forward with my fist cocked back. It just felt right, all of my body weight flying forward at a vulnerable target, when again, what Ruth said earlier to me ran through my head.

"You do not know how to perform a... 'Superman Punch'."

Oh no. I didn't. And that was what I was doing!

While I had been looking at Laura's disrupted stance, I had been ignoring her eyes. As I jumped at her, I got a look and saw the most predatory shine in them I had seen up until that point. I stopped trying to punch and damn near turtled in midair. Whatever she'd hit me with to try and counter my stupid attack hurt my forearms like hell. When I landed, I knew we were close, so I turned her way and swung an elbow in her direction. She covered up to protect herself and grabbed me inside the elbow with one hand and the back of my head with the other.

I pressed close to her, trying to bully her around by being bigger than her. It had worked before. I didn't expect it to solve all of my problems, but I just wanted some time to think. She fought like a whirlwind, more ferocious than anyone I had ever dealt with. But it was completely controlled. I had to tap into some of my light power to keep up with her. I didn't even want to, it was just out of instinct. We were so close, I wrapped an arm around her waist and grabbed the back of her neck, but from how she had a hold of me, I couldn't throw her away.

She drove the point of her knee into the inside of one of mine. It hurt. I winced. She saw it. I'm sure she heard the grunt I tried my hardest to hold back. In the same motion, she stepped that leg over the outside of the same knee she had hit and turned her hips sharply.

My body went flying over hers. I hit the ground and before I could start trying to scramble to get back up or grab onto her somehow to protect myself, she plopped herself down on my stomach with her butt. Whatever air I had left in my after getting thrown left me when she did that. She jerked my head back and pressed her knuckles to my throat. I knew what that meant and froze.

Miss Pryde knew what it meant too, "Alright, that's enough," Laura immediately stood up off of me and walked away. It was kind of awkward. She didn't even offer to help me up. That was fine. I was just fine laying there, sucking wind back into my lungs, "That was very good Laura."

"Very good?" I heard Hisako whisper from the sidelines, "She just handed Bel his butt on a silver platter."

"No kidding. I've never seen anyone put him away like that," Eddie followed up, "Seriously, can we get her on this team? That was awesome."

Laura just took Miss Pryde's compliment with a simple nod, like it was just an everyday thing. To be fair, it probably was nothing more than a bit of an inconvenience to deal with me, "Bellamy tried to use his reach to keep me away. He gave up too quickly on that strategy once I got past it the first time," She pointed out, "Using his size against a smaller opponent was also a good idea, but he is not good enough at grappling to exploit that advantage properly."

Yeah, yeah, I sucked. Good to know. At least that helped me know what I actually need to work on next, instead of just working on everything at once the way I had been until then. It was always nice to have some kind of focus when you were training, otherwise there was no real point.

Miss Pryde finally walked over to help me up. As I stood, I noticed that she was trying to fight a grin off of her face, "You knew she could to do that," I accused. Not angrily, just more along the lines of asking why the fuck it was necessary to lose to someone like Laura.

"I did," Miss Pryde admitted, patting me on the back and brushing some stray grass and dirt off of me, "I just wanted to make sure you knew that there's always someone out there who could teach you a thing or two. Even someone your own age."

"Noted," I said, and I meant it. I was the leader, so I hadn't thought much on deferring to others on things, but when someone clearly knew more about something than I did, it only made sense, "Though I don't think she's much of the teaching type. That, and she probably won't even join this squad."

She seemed to take that as a challenge, "Really?" She asked me before addressing our guest who was putting her jacket back on, much to Eddie's displeasure, "So Laura, do you think you might like to join the Paladins?"

Laura looked back at Miss Pryde for a moment, her eyes going a bit wide. She looked between Eddie, Hisako, and Ruth, then over to me. That was where she lingered for a moment. I wanted to call her on it or back down, but I just stood there and took it. Maybe I raised an eyebrow, but that was it. Eventually she looked back at Miss Pryde and decided, "Yes."

"Fantastic!" Miss Pryde declared, clapping her hands together. She really did seem pleased, and why not? Laura was money, that much was clear, "I'll let the headmaster know and work with you this afternoon about designing your uniform," She said before turning to me with a smirk. As if anything needed to be said.

She didn't have to be so self-satisfied about it. I was awful at reading other most of the time, not even mentioning those with as few tells as Laura had, "Oh, don't so look so smug. You know I'm not good with people."

XxX

Another day, another lunch period, and I was in desperate need of some sustenance.

"Come on, Wolf. Let's get some food in us."

"I do not require nutrition to survive, Bellamy. You are aware of this."

Yeah, Wolf was with me. It wasn't like he had much else to do.

I had made the rounds talking about how the days had to be so boring for Saberwolf. Some teachers had given me the okay to let him sit in on some classes. He still wasn't a student, even though he could learn, but it was just as well. A giant wolf-bot with a high school diploma would have been weird.

So sometimes he followed me, sometimes he didn't. Other times he would go off to wander campus on his own or go back to my room to game. But he usually met back up with me around lunch, even though he didn't need to eat anything to live.

By then, the rest of the school had gotten used to Saberwolf being around. Plus, he'd gotten a lot of brownie points with the students and the teachers for helping to protect kids from the drones that the Danger Room had taken control of during the Field Day fiasco. He still insisted that he was leaving any day now when he figured out what he wanted to do, but he was starting to get comfortable at the Institute.

"It was suggested by one of the Xavier Institute's staff," Saberwolf said, his feet softly padding off of the tile on the floor as we walked through the cafeteria, "I do not feel comfortable with allowing this Forge individual to check my diagnostics and study me."

And why wouldn't he? It sounded a lot like being taken apart to me. I didn't know if Wolf felt pain or fear, but he had a healthy respect of death, or what equated to death for him.

"Well, you're sentient, so say no," I told him. He hadn't done anything except sleep in my room and play the hell out of my video games. If that was what it took to have him on my side when bad things happened, I'd stick up for him until the end, "I'll throw another shit-fit about it if I have to. I've already got enough beef with the headmistress. I might as well double up and piss off the headmaster too. You know, complete the set."

Wolf took that moment to contemplate his decision to throw his lot in with me, "I do not think staying with you has done much for the outlook that Emma Frost and Cyclops have on me," He said, "Perhaps I should have primarily associated myself with Blindfold instead?"

Not a chance. He was my A.I. pal. "Ah-ah-ah, I'm the first one you saw, and I'm the one who busted you out, so you imprinted onto me... just like a baby duck," I reminded him, dodging a swipe of his tail that was aimed at my head, "Also, Ruthie doesn't have any video games or movies, so you would be bored out of your mind with her."

Sitting down at the table with my friends, I planned to dig into what I had picked up from the lunch line, only for a calculus book to be dropped right in front of me, turned right to the page that we were supposed to be using for homework that night.

I looked next to me where Hisako had plopped down, her own book open and at the ready. She didn't say anything, just sitting there staring at me. I had indeed asked her to help me figure out how to do things in that class so I could stop trying so hard and coast like I did through every other course I had.

"Now?" I asked her, still holding the burger I had picked up in my hand, "You want to do this now?" I was not in the mood to do work.

Hisako was patient, yet seemed to know that she was challenging my deep-rooted lazy bone, "You asked me to help. Do you really want to waste our free time studying, or do you just want to get it out of the way?" She had a point, but it was hard to get motivated for things that I wanted no part of.

"You know what? You're right. Lets get it out of the way then," I said, taking a bite of my sandwich before setting it aside to get to work.

The smile she gave me was probably the nicest one I had gotten from her since we'd met, "You see how easy things can be when you don't try to be a smartass about everything?"

Saberwolf took that moment to chime in, "Times like these without hearing his retorts are encouraging. I sometimes wonder if he is physically capable of holding himself back."

Hisako spared Wolf an understanding glance before grinning back at me, "See? Me and the wolf-bot agree on something. That has to tell you something."

"I am an A.I.," Wolf corrected gently, but otherwise left it alone. He must have been getting used to the mistake.

There was an 'Asians are good at math' joke right on the tip of my tongue to respond with, but I thought better of it. Hisako was being nice and actually helping me with my calculus. Antagonizing her just for the sake of argumentative banter would have been a real prick move, no matter how fun it was to take shots at each other. After all, I was trying to be a better person, no matter what my instinct to respond was.

As the lunch period dragged on and the answers spilled out onto my pages, the desire to run my mouth increased, "You know, I was fine with math, until I got past algebra," I said, "Why couldn't things stay that simple? Algebra was just mad libs with numbers."

Hisako busied herself with doing her own homework while she waited on me to finish my problem or get as far as I could so she could check it, "It's supposed to make it easier to deal with bigger sums of money, more people dealing with the money, getting a piece and all that," She explained, "Why'd you even take the class?"

"I needed a math course. Trust me, if I could stay away from numbers, I would," I said, as Ruth made her way over to our table and sat down. An idea immediately hit me, "Ruthie, have I told you today that you're my favorite Paladin?"

Ruth held her hands up as though she were putting some distance between me and what she could tell I wanted, "Sorry. She will not help you cheat in your calculus class. Thank you."

Oh well. It was worth a try.

Eddie slid into his seat across the table, the legs of the chair screeching off of the floor. He distracted me, but to be fair a squirrel running around outside within sight of the window probably could have distracted me, "Poor ol' Bel, getting his ass handed to him by the new girl and now he can't handle his math."

I let out a groan. He had brought it up repeatedly since it had happened the day before. Any excuse to punch holes in my inflated ego, "I couldn't make out an opening, I swear," I tried to tell them. Fighting Laura had been like fighting an illustration out of a 'how-to' martial arts text... only in real life, shaped like a girl, and with claws, "The only openings I found were the ones I made."

With the shift in topics, Hisako took a look around the cafeteria trying to spot our teammate, "Now that we're talking about it, where is Laura anyway?" Even if she had chosen to sit by herself or somewhere else, we should have been able to spot her somewhere.

It was a good question. I hadn't seen her since the day before, which was odd, seeing as how I saw everyone else multiple times through the day, "I don't know. I don't have any classes with her," I focused on Hisako and Ruth, "You guys stay in the girl dorms, not us. Do you know where she is?"

"I don't even know where her room is, or if she's even rooming with anybody," Hisako said with a shrug of her shoulders, "I didn't see her after Miss Pryde took her to get her uniform designed."

I could already tell it was going to be tough getting Laura on the same page as everyone else, but things like this would just make it more difficult. For starters, none of us even knew how to find her if we needed to. That was a problem for obvious reasons. Hell, we couldn't even get her to sit with us during lunch to try and get her integrated with us. Rome wasn't built in a day though. Miss Pryde said before that I was patient. We would see how far that extended. Making sure everything was alright with my team was a big deal to me, and that included Laura now.

Besides, it was clear that she was well worth the effort that getting on her good side would be. I would find out all of the particulars later. If Miss Pryde didn't know, Mister Logan would. There was a chance he would be unwilling to come off of the information, but if I could goad him into some spars he'd let me know after slapping me around a bit. I clearly still needed the practice anyway.

XxX

The gym was something of a sanctuary for me. There was nothing to do there, but move heavy things, which didn't exactly require a lot of attention. Some of my best thinking was done while lifting a heavy metal object.

Squats were good for that sort of thing. You just went down and stood back up. So simple. All you had to do was keep your posture straight, which was something you really didn't have to think about when you were used to doing them. Even putting on and taking off weight didn't require much more thought than basic addition and subtraction.

I guess the grind helped pump blood to my brain or something. I seemed to think better when I was doing something strenuous. Perhaps bringing my calculus homework to the gym would have been productive.

I was interrupted from my sense of inner peace by the voice of Santo, which actually made it through the earbuds I had playing music.

"Think you're so great, Marcher?" I heard him say from across the room, "How 'bout this?"

I set the weight back on the rack and looked over to where Santo was benching six tons of weight in the superhuman part of the gym.

The louder members of the Hellions still had beef with me, but mostly on a rivalry level at this point. My attempts to make peace from earlier in the semester, and standing to fight with Julian in the Danger room did a lot to help with that.

Was there still some heat? No, not with most of them. And even with Julian, well, it wasn't scalding.

I toweled myself off and watched Santo do his thing with the controlled weights. I was a bit jealous to see him throw around so much. Even with my powers, I could only lift so much, "Well, I'm not made of rock, so..." I commented, "Still, good on you. Wait. Do you even have muscles to build?"

Santo shrugged, even as he was lifting thousands of pounds over his body, "Beats me."

Damn. I should have figured a guy like Santo wouldn't even have thought about whether or not he was getting any stronger lifting all of that crap. Hell, he wasn't even struggling. How much could he even lift?

I hung around by the big rock boy, taking a moment to catch my breath while he finished his set, "So I heard you guys got a new teammate," Santo said, trying to make some conversation, "She hot?"

What a familiar question. I got the feeling that I was going to hear that a lot until most people were introduced to Laura proper, "Did you talk to Eddie?"

"Hell yeah," Santo said, benching his weight and sitting up from the machine he had been on, "Wing won't shut up about it. No one's seen her yet though. I'm starting to think she's imaginary."

I was more or less done, and Santo seemed to be too, as we started heading for the doors together, "No, she's real. She's legit too."

Towering over me, Santo looked over my way with a huge grin, "Yeah, I heard she kicked your ass too, no powers."

Of course he would have heard about that too. I wouldn't be surprised if everyone hadn't heard about it by now. People seemed to take delight in me losing to other people at things. I guess I was easy to root against.

"I told you, she's legit," I said, trying to justify my loss. I didn't think there was another student in the entire school that could beat Laura in pure hand-to-hand, "I wouldn't roll over and say I'd lose to just anyone. When you're good, you're good."

"Right. Well we'll just see how good when team competitions start again," Santo said leaving me alone as I headed off to the showers. It wasn't like he needed to wash off any sweat. He was made of rock, "Julian still wants a piece of you. Something about not wanting to let you think you're too badass or something."

I put my hands over my heart mockingly as I backed into the locker room, "So Hellion thinks I'm badass. That just made my day!"

Santo wasn't really a bad guy. He was just the walking epitome of meathead jock. Never had I met someone with powers so appropriate to who they were as a person. Still, if you knew how to handle those types of people, they were fine.

I had pissed off all kinds of folks in my time, so picking up on personality traits was a thing I could do. Knowing how to deal with those traits was something else entirely though. It usually took me a while to figure out how to go about getting on with others.

Which was what worried me about Laura. I hadn't figured out what kind of person she was yet. I had no experience with anyone like her before, and I wanted to make her feel welcome.

Not welcome enough to confront me in the boys' locker room, but still...

"Holy shit!" I changed clothes, and after I pulled my shirt over my head, she was right there, "Hooo. What? You-? Laura, what the hell?" I needed a moment to let my heart rate lower, "Woman, I almost shot you. Don't sneak up on me," I didn't think it needed to be said to not follow me into certain places, yet there she stood.

Laura didn't seem too concerned with potentially eating a light blast for scaring me, "You were looking for me, weren't you? I did not wish to interrupt your workout, or your conversation with Rockslide once you were done."

Weird circumstances aside, I got over her presence quickly, "You're my teammate, you can interrupt me whenever you want," I told her before putting on a smirk, "You know, unless I was with a girl or something. Then use discretion," She just stared back at me, clearly not enjoying my brand of humor, "That was a joke... kind of."

"I know. I just did not find it funny."

Ouch.

"Well, I do want to talk to you. But this isn't the best place for it," I turned to my locker and went to grab my bag out of there, "So if you can get out without letting anyone see you, we can go somewhere and-," By the time I turned back around, ready to go, Laura was already gone, "...Gonna have to get used to that."

When I stepped out of the locker room, I looked around for any sign of Laura. Conventional wisdom would have suggested that she would have waited for me right outside, but this wasn't the case. I was ready to go on the hunt for her and started checking out the hallways. After circling the sub-basement level, I gave up and started heading for the elevator. Maybe I would have better luck on the upper floors.

On my way to the elevator, I came across two members of the Paragons squad. Megan and Hope. Even though the Paladins and the Paragons had it out for a bit during the Field Day finale, we were still on good terms. Their team was nice, and they didn't seem to hate me, which was also nice.

"Oh! There he is!" Megan seemed excited to see me, which was a real pick-me-up, "He's actually down here. Hi, Bel!"

Hope gave Megan a soft elbow in the side, "And you thought you missed your chance at lunch. All we had to do was ask someone where he was."

I certainly felt popular. First Laura now Megan and Hope. Everyone seemed to want a piece of me, which in this instance was something I could get behind, "Hey, girls. Were you looking for me?" I asked with an honest-to-goodness smile.

I liked Megan. She was a total sweetheart. A real positive person. At a time when most of the people my age were self-centered, moody tools (myself included, don't worry), it was nice to come across someone who was so uncompromisingly upbeat.

That was when Megan's demeanor changed. She stood in front of me, wringing her hands uncomfortably. Was I scaring her or something? I did have resting asshole face, which was the male equivalent of resting bitch face. A lot of people usually thought I was pissed, even when I tried to be pleasant. Honestly, even if I seemed mad all of the time, I really wasn't!

"No. Yes," She backtracked. Her wings drooped a bit as she tried to settle on one or the other, "Well, kind of. You see, I wanted to talk to you about something, but I didn't want to bother you if you weren't in the mood. Not that I'm saying you're grumpy or anything, even though you seem kind of grumpy a lot of the time!" Megan kept rambling. From her body language, I could tell she knew she was talking too much and getting way off-track, but still couldn't help herself.

Thankfully, Hope stepped in to keep her from going on and on, "Anyway, Megan just wanted to ask if you were doing anything Friday afternoon. A few of us are heading into town to hang out, and we thought, Bellamy's a nice guy. Plus, we owe him one. Right, Pixie?" She said, trying to lead her friend along in the conversation.

"R-Right!" Megan said with a much more confident smile, "You saved me in the Danger Room. And you did keep me from looking silly after... you know," At the wake. I remembered. She didn't need to say anymore about it, and she definitely didn't have to give me any credit for that. I wasn't a bad enough guy to ignore someone who came to me crying, "You helped a lot, and I'd like to say thank you, if that's okay."

I waved off part of what she said, "You don't have to thank me for anything, but I'd love to hang out," I made sure to specify. I rarely got to spend any time with anyone. A lot of my spare time was spent gaming, or binging on Netflix and Hulu with Saberwolf, "Yeah, that sounds great, actually. Count me in."

Hope gave Megan a good shake. Both of them seemed happy with me agreeing to go, which was nice, "Great! We'll meet up at the shuttle at 4:00, if that works for you."

"Can do. It's gonna be a good time," I said before waving goodbye to head off my own way, "Catch you guys later."

Even as I moved away, I could still hear the two of them talking among themselves, "That's so great!" Hope said in more of a stage whisper than an actual one, "You see? I told you he'd say yes. Bel's not some intense, scary guy. He's really nice."

Megan shot back, sounding no less enthused about everything, "I knew that already! Still, he might have said no to me."

My ego was inflated more than a zeppelin. I stopped just short of clicking my heels in the air when I made it into the elevator heading to the ground floor of the Institute, because that shit wasn't cool. I wasn't going on a date, not really, seeing as how I wasn't going to be alone with a girl, but I was asked to do something away from the school... by a girl. That counted for partial credit, didn't it?

"Do you wish to speak now?"

I jumped halfway across the elevator when my newest teammate seemed to come out of nowhere all over again. I had nearly forgotten that she was around, "Damn it, Laura," Did she not make footsteps when she walked? It didn't make any sense how someone could have no presence unless they wanted to, "I said don't scare me anymore. You don't have to do that."

"You just said not to interrupt you when you were talking to a girl," She reasoned with a shrug, "I was by the elevators and waited until you were finished."

Fair enough. Megan had enough trouble talking to me with Hope backing her up. If Laura had been lingering around nearby staring a hole through her, she probably would have just scared her, as unintentional as it would have been.

I got myself back together quickly enough, trying to look all composed and leader-like. I doubted it did much to get any of Laura's respect, "I just wanted to see how you were doing, how you were setting in, things like that."

She tilted her head to the side, as if she were questioning what I wanted, "Why?"

Laura looked at me as though she were waiting for a catch. I couldn't believe it. Did she really not get it? It made no sense to me, "You're my teammate. That means I'm supposed to have your back, support you, all of that good stuff."

Little Miss Loner didn't want any part of that though, "There is no need. I will adapt," She said, "Thank you for your concern, though."

I looked up at the sky for a split-second as if to ask God him or herself, 'really?' Laura was really going to make me work for this one. Well she needed to know I meant what I said, and I that I was in for the long-haul, "Got a new phone yet?" I asked. She nodded and handed it over when I asked, albeit hesitantly. I quickly put my contact info in there, "Here. My number's in here now. If you do need something or want to talk, just give me a call or come to my room. I don't really sleep, so anytime is fine."

Getting a real conversation or some kind of rapport with her was going to take time. I wasn't going to rush it. Clearly it wasn't going to happen overnight, so I would keep chipping away at it. I wasn't going anywhere, and hopefully neither was she.

I gave her back the phone and patted her on the shoulder. I didn't even hit her with any force. I just made solid contact... you know, just letting her know I was there. She flinched – hard. She didn't think I was going to do something to hurt her, did she?

Laura got away from me quickly. I couldn't put the two parts of her together. Even from the one time when we were sparring, in a fight she was confident, angry and intense. It was a night and day difference from how she was at any other time. She was awkward. She seemed scared to even make the effort to interact with anyone on the team.

I sighed and headed back to my room, "...Leader problems..." I muttered.

Damn it, there are so many things I need to do, and there's no time to do it all. Never have I missed not having any responsibilities more than I do now. I want to wrestle, write my book, do my podcast with my Fandom Flux peeps (now available for your weekly consumption on Youtube), play games like Horizon... all that good stuff.

...But there aren't enough hours in the day, children. There just aren't.

Alright, enough of that noise. You don't care. The chapter is done, and a sense of normalcy is starting to settle back in. But how long will it last? And what will screw over the peace next?

Eh, we'll see.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. I'll be back eventually with more stuff. Kenchi out.