Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men, or any other property of Marvel. Damn it, superpowers need to be a real thing. I was born a few centuries too early, guys.

Chapter 17: Never Miss A Beat

With everything that happened to us on a regular basis, it was very easy to forget that we went to a school. You know, with actual classes that we had to sit in on. Not classes like 'the best way to take down killer robots', but history or literature.

Whatever else was going on, we were still students. Unless something outrageous was going on, when final exams rolled around, it was basically, 'Suck it up, princess. Pass your tests'.

I put down my pen for a moment to crack my knuckles and rub my eyes. The entirety of the Paladins had gone to the library to try and get some studying done. Eddie, Hisako, Ruth, even Laura figured it would be a good idea to hit the books together.

"That equation is incorrect," Laura said, taking the opportunity to look over my work. She glanced at it for a second and pointed to where I made the mistake, "There. Go back and redo the problem from here."

I stared at the paper in front of me, the book I'd written down the problem from, and then at Laura, "You barely even-. How did you-?" I eventually gave up and pushed my things away, "Goddamn calculus."

Fuck math.

"This is super-lame," Eddie said, thumping his head down on his open book set on the table, "We're superheroes-in-training, stuck here studying for tests."

Hisako rolled her eyes. She was closer to Eddie than she was to the rest of us, but that didn't mean he couldn't irk her sometimes, "Yeah, I can just see it now. Wing, eventually a full-fledged member of the X-Men, helps save the world... and has to head to Biology 2 in the morning with the other sophomores."

Eddie wasn't impressed by that vision of his future, "I'm a junior, thank you. Not like they're gonna drop me a year because I fail anything this year. Leave the precog stuff to Blindfold," He said, gesturing his head Ruth's way, "I'm just saying, some squad work might get my brain juices flowing, right Bel?"

Why he had to bring me into this was beyond me. I was just sitting there doing my time studying, "I've had about enough superhero shit to last me a little while, thank you. The flying ginger has a point though. This is boring."

Hisako pushed a book across the table that hit me in the stomach, "Calculus," She said, "I didn't tutor you just for you to quit on the home stretch."

I didn't want to look down at the book containing my most hated subject, "I have a C in there," Closer to a D actually, but no one needed to know the exact specifics of my grades, "I would have to completely tank the exam to fail the class."

Which wasn't going to happen. Even if I failed, it would be a high F. I could live with that if it meant I wouldn't have to step foot in a calculus class again.

Hisako smirked at me, fist underneath her chin, waving a pen around in her fingers, "Do you want me to lord my better grades over yours until the next time? Come on, Bel, at least make it a challenge for me."

Damn her. I had pretty nice grades. I hovered around the A-B mark. Getting C's was considered struggling by my standards. But Hisako kept. Straight. Goddamn. A's.

The only class I dominated her in was history. And dominated was too strong a word. She worked hard and got high 90's, but I sleepwalked through that class and posted up 100's across the board. It infuriated her, and I loved it.

When I heard names, dates, and events, I could picture the story that went with them in my head. That made it easy to memorize everything. All history was to me was story time, just with real events. I didn't ever have to crack a book. I just listened to the lectures and took notes. Notes that I never looked at. So many dead trees for no good reason.

"I don't remember when this became a GPA contest," I said, not admitting to the fact that I completely accepted it as one months ago, "I just never want to look at a book with numbers ever again. I'm reviewing my Spanish stuff now."

"You have an A in Spanish," Laura said, not looking up from her own studies.

This was true, "I would like to keep that A," I said, "Mejor que perder el tiempo en el cálculo," I said with a wink and a click of my tongue."

Ruth spoke up at that point, "Bellamy thinks it is better not to waste time on calculus, yes."

I looked over at Ruth, who hadn't really touched any of her study materials since we'd gotten to the library. That had been damn close to what I'd actually said. She'd gotten the gist of it, at least, "Huh. Didn't know Ruthie spoke Spanish."

Eddie rolled his eyes, "She doesn't. You think in English, genius. Besides, even if she didn't read minds, it's kind of obvious calculus is on your shit list, seeing as how you fail at it."

"I don't fail at calculus," I said, turning my nose up at the idea of not succeeding at anything, "I just don't get high grades in calculus."

"-Which is the same as failing to you," Hisako said. I hissed at her like a cat for knowing that much about me, "What happened to the Bellamy that didn't accept failure?"

I looked down at the book in front of me with a sense of dread, "He got stuck staring at numbers and symbols that he can't make heads or tails of for two hours a day since April," A stray thought hit me, "Can I just cheat on this thing?" I whispered.

Eddie grinned at the idea, "You say that like it's easy," He said, "You can try, I guess. I don't care. Does anyone here care?"

No one did. Not really. Hisako made an observation, but other than that, no one was offended, "There's no way you're cheating in any class in this school and getting away with it."

A fair point. Most of our teachers were X-Men. They noticed when students tried to sneak cheat sheets in, or write down answers somewhere to help themselves. We had all seen examples of this. That hadn't been where I'd been going with that line of thinking though.

"...What if I just got a psychic to just shove all of that crap into my head?" I asked. Everyone at the table looked over at me, even Laura, who kept to herself most of the time.

Eddie looked around and lowered his head closer to the table, "You're going to use Blindfold to cheat on your test?" He whispered as quietly as he could, "...That's fucking awesome! Why didn't I think of that sooner?"

Hisako looked over at Ruth, who didn't really seem to react much to what I'd said, "I'm pretty sure that if she could do that, she would have already offered, at least to Bellamy," Ruth frowned at her. She might have said something to her telepathically. I didn't know what, "Don't give me that. You know you would have."

"There is a school policy against this," Laura pointed out. This time, all of us looked at her. It seemed like the attention made her want to shrink down in her chair, "...I have read the student handbook before."

Of course she had.

I raised my hand like I was in class, "Wait, a rule against cheating, or a rule against using telepathy to cheat?" I asked Laura to specify.

"Right. Because they're both totally not the same thing," Hisako remarked sarcastically.

"How would even Frost know?" Eddie liked the idea of getting free info shot into his head too much to let it go, "As a matter of fact, why would she even check any of us in particular?"

...Other than my test grade magically (read: suspiciously) shooting up with very little history of progression to reach that point?

Ruth held up a finger and then slowly pointed my way, "Sorry. Yes, Miss Frost does not like Bellamy, no."

Still? I thought we were past that. I was for the most part. I mean, yes, I wasn't going to turn my back on her anytime soon, and I wasn't about to take anything she said to me at face value, but she wasn't the only one. I'd been burned too much by having a 'the adults know how to handle it' kind of mindset.

It wasn't personal. It was more along the lines of get smart or get dead. Never miss a goddamn beat.

And speaking of getting smart, "Do you want to take that chance?" Hisako asked me, "You just said you'd pass, even if you failed the exam."

"Yeah, but..." I wanted to beat her GPA. I didn't say that though. Are you kidding me? No way, "I really don't want to fail the exam."

She didn't need to hear it to know my motivations. Sometimes I wondered if there were two mind readers on the Paladins, "I swear to God, Bel, you're hopeless sometimes."

"Calm down. I'm not gonna do it," It wasn't worth the risk of getting busted, since it would have been just my luck to fall to such a fate. I cracked open the book on the table in front of me, viciously flipping pages to where I'd left off, "...Fucking calculus."

XxX

The Paladins were not the only ones hitting the books. For all of the training squads, you couldn't just coast through without passing classes. It was like students on a high school team. If you failed utterly at everything, you were suspended from team training or competing with others.

There were no exceptions, no matter what Julian said when it came to the Hellions having an in because the headmistress was Miss Frost, their senior advisor.

So all of us in every squad knuckled down and cracked a book. Some more than others. Some in different ways than others.

I don't know what I expected when I stepped up to Megan's dorm room door, "When you called me and told me you wanted to hang out, I didn't think I'd have another book in front of me."

"Aww, all studied out?" Megan asked. It must have shown all over my face, because she giggled a bit at me, "I get it. Ben's been a slave driver all week long. The only reason he let me get away today is because I said I was getting you to tutor me~," She held up a history book in front of her face, waving it around, asking me with her eyes to help.

What was I supposed to do? She was just standing there in those itty-bitty shorts. The way she fidgeted in place on the dorm carpet was designed to make me look at her legs. She knew exactly what she was doing. A bonafide sucker for pretty girls, I am.

That was how I ended up in her room. At first glance, it was hard to tell which side of it belonged to her, and which side belonged to her teammate Hope. Most other people had roommates, except for me. But seeing as how I joined late in the year and already shared my room with a giant metal wolf, the staff had never gotten around to putting any students with me.

I was eventually able to tell whose side was which. Both sides were brightly decorated. From the posters I saw, both had roughly the same taste in music and a lot of other things. Megan's side was a bit more cluttered. Everything was a bit more cluttered. Not that it was dirty, things were clean and in place, but they were more haphazardly put away.

Megan hopped over to her bed and sat on it, leaning against a wall with a Dazzler poster on it and patting a spot next to her meant for me. When I sat down, she deposited the history book in my lap and basically took over my entire left side, "Comfortable?"

"You're getting kind of familiar, aren't you?" I said. Not that I had a problem with it at all.

Megan reached over and poked me in the middle of the forehead, "I know I said it before, I want to get to know you better," If possible, she got in even closer to me than before, "See this? The fact that it doesn't bother you at all tells me a little more about you than I knew ten minutes ago."

What? That I had no issues with a cute girl damn near hanging off of me? Of course not, "Well how about we multitask then?" I proposed, "I'm gonna ask you questions. Get one right, you get to ask me a question."

She didn't like the idea of a quiz-reward system, scrunching her face up at the thought, "Can't you just tell me about yourself?"

I couldn't help myself. I laughed, "Yeah, but this is more fun."

She smacked me a few times on the chest for laughing at her, "It's not so fun for me."

"You did ask me to help you study," I reminded Megan, catching her hand to get her to stop, "I actually want you to do well. You know, get to rub it in some faces... maybe let me preen about it a little bit," I gave her a little nudge that got a begrudging smile out of her, "Come on. What do you say? I promise I won't make it too hard."

"You'd better not just to get out of answering questions, Bel,"

"I won't. I am an open book. And speaking of open books..."

So we went back over a chapter or two that she said she didn't have the best recollection of. The unification of Germany in the 1800s. To be fair, there was a lot of little bits that went into it that made it complex.

It took about thirty minutes to get through the chunks that she had problems with. Being that I did know what was important in these damn things, I gave her my summarized version of events and names. People and what they did that made them relevant was the thing she had the most trouble with, so it was what I focused on most of all.

I remembered most names of any historic reference because I could associate them with one sentence of what made them famous in the first place. It was like sticking my head into the rabbit hole, and after those two things were put together, everything else about them that I knew started linking up. It turned out, that process actually did help Megan, so that was what I used.

It was exciting seeing her excited about more of this stuff sticking. Before she could get bored, I started the line of questions, which perked her up before she could start coming down, going with the momentum and all of that.

"The Franco-Prussian War of 1870. What was the decisive event that led to the beginning of the end?"

"The Battle of Sedan," Megan answered with a confidence that she hadn't started with, "I remembered that one because of the car."

I grinned to myself. I did things like that a lot. It worked. The only downside was that if it really stuck, every time she thought of a 4-door vehicle, info on that battle would flash through her head for a moment.

She was right, but I wasn't willing to make things quite that easy, "That was a cream puff. Battles are easy to remember. Why was it so decisive?" I demanded follow-up details.

Megan was up to the task however. She did great, answering quick, "Napoleon III surrendered. He was emperor, and that really messed up stuff back in Paris."

That was fine to me. I didn't need any technical, flowery, nuts-and-bolts answers. Most of the exam was going to be multiple choice. Save the expansive crap for the essay questions, "What about the army?" I continued asking further.

"Napoleon surrendered his army along with him."

"Why else did that matter so much? Was that the only force France had available?"

"The rest of them were caught in a pinch," Vague. Too vague. I gave her a look. I needed a better answer than that. She started to panic a bit, but I didn't relent until I got a solid answer, "A-A siege! The Siege of Metz! They surrendered a little bit later, I think."

I nodded, satisfied by her answer, "Good. I was about to ask that next," I wouldn't ask for an exact date. Tests didn't ask for specific dates unless it was like 'signing of the Declaration of Independence' in the U.S. big, "Okay, so with no army in the field to stop them, what came next?"

Megan bounced in place on the bed, getting more excited as we went on. She knew I was running out of steam, "The Siege of Paris. It went for four months. Paris surrendered in January 1871. That was basically the end of the war," She rushed her answer. She was right, but was clearly getting impatient, "Now you have to answer my questions!"

"Almost. We're nearly done," She could pout at me all she wanted to. I was a rock, "What big things did the Prussians get out of winning the war?"

"Germany was officially recognized as a unified country, and they got the Alsace-Lorraine territory," Megan said before leaning on me and shaking me, "Bel... come ooooooon! You said I could ask you one question if I answered one question. You did, like, fifty questions in a row!"

I let her do as she pleased, it was funnier than anything else. It had all worked out well, "You got 'em all, didn't you?" I said, "It was six, by the way. Six questions. That's what you get, so go ahead and take your best shot."

She grabbed my hands and moved us into a position facing each other. It felt like I was about to get a palm reading. That, or a lie detector test.

Megan hadn't thought of what she was going to ask me the whole time we had been studying. It took her a moment to come up with something to ask, "What's the most scared you've ever been?" She eventually blurted out.

I shrugged. It wasn't a hard thing to answer, seeing as how all of the possible candidates had happened within the last six months. One in particular stuck out from the rest, "Before the Danger Room wigged out during Field Day, it did it late at night when I was all by myself," I recalled going through a slew of opponents that I felt were impossible to defeat on my own, "I think I might have cried."

"Wow," My answer caught her more off-guard than I thought it would have, "You cried. I can't see you crying about… well, anything."

I wasn't some crazy-tough man of action, no matter how much I wanted to be, "I wasn't bawling and snotting everywhere. But when I knew I was a dead man, I did kind of lose it," I reasoned defensively, "That's never happening again."

"I think the Paladins get into more trouble than any other training squad at school," Megan said, "More than the New Mutants and the Hellions. I'm sure of it."

I couldn't argue with that. The facts spoke for themselves. No one else had gotten caught up in preventing an intergalactic war, "Probably. It's not like we go looking for it though. You were there twice. This crap just happens to me," As it would continue to. But that was inconsequential, "What else you got?"

I hoped it would be a more fun thing to discuss than shit that kept me up at night. Fortunately, I was not disappointed, "What kind of TV shows do you watch?"

"Anything that can make me laugh is always good. Though, I don't get that very much," Most sitcoms and situational comedies were terrible to me, "It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia and Archer are some of my favorites," Which, come to think of it, probably explained a lot about the kind of person I was.

From the look on her face, it was clear she wasn't familiar with it, "I don't think I've seen either of those."

That was good, all things considered, "I'm probably going to keep you away from them for a while then," I said to myself, lest she find out how terrible my sense of humor could be, "I watch a lot of specials from stand-up comedians too. Ones I really like, I download. Come to think of it, what do you like?"

Getting to know each other went both ways after all, and Megan seemed more than happy to share, "Dramas with music as a major theme. Empire. Nashville. Those are fun. And the soundtracks are always really good," She said, before thinking of something else, "Oh, and I wish there were more game shows like Jeopardy nowadays. I always liked that one."

That sounded like fun. I didn't watch much of Jeopardy, but when I did, I had a good time. That was a solid selection. Something it might be fun to curl up with her and watch. Not that I would say that out loud. It didn't sound cool.

"I watch more movies than TV shows," I admitted, "My parents run a movie theater in San Francisco, so I've seen almost everything that's come out since I was a little kid," For better or for worse.

"What 5 movies are your background noise then?"

It was a very good question. I grinned at her catching on to good things to ask for some fun answers. I don't remember how much time we spent actually talking, but the sun had still been up when we'd started. The next thing I knew, night had fallen.

"What kind of girls do you like?" She launched my way as one of her later targeted questions.

She had been building up to asking something along those lines. Honestly, I'd expected that sort of subject to come up sooner than it had, "You, obviously," The fact that I'd been prepared to answer didn't mean I was going to make it easy. What was the fun in that?

Megan could tell I was being difficult for the sake of it and hit me a few times in the chest with her palms. They were really weak; funnier to me than anything else. Eventually I grabbed her wrists and put her hands by her sides, "I'm serious. Come on. You said you'd answer anything I asked you," She told me, "What do you like? Cute girls? Girls who seem grown up? Blondes? Bad girls? Smart types? Girls with wings?" She batted her eyes and gave her wings a quick flutter for emphasis. I thought it was neat.

"Cute girls are fine and everything, but there's lots of things I consider cute," I was very accepting of all sorts of girls' physical traits. I was pickier when it came to what was on the inside, "Compatibility is a bigger issue for me."

I was vague on purpose, almost maddeningly so. Who went into detail on something like that so easily? Some things took a little prodding, "What do you look for then?"

I thought about my answer, crossing my arms over my chest and staring out straight ahead across the room. This took a lot of thought to articulate, "Well, first and foremost, a girl has to be able to tolerate me," I said, "I'm not changing who I am. I like who I am. If something bothers a girl that likes me, I'll cut down on it, but if someone's looking at me like some kind of project, that they can turn me into their 'ideal guy' with a little time and effort, if they get rid of this and that about me, and I find out that's what they want... well, let's just leave it at that."

Because I would be leaving it at that. There were over 6 billion people on the planet. There had to be someone that was willing to take me as I was, and I wasn't against playing the field until I found that person. Just being honest.

I shook my head in distaste, thinking about my next point, "I don't want somebody with a chip on their shoulder. You know, somebody with something to prove, tries to turn everything into a fight," I didn't see myself dealing with that for very long, no matter what else was good about their looks or personality, "...That shit's not fun."

My answer confused her a bit, "Then why do you spend so much time around Hisako? You guys fight all the time," My team dynamic did include a lot of myself and Armor butting heads. But that was more for team morale. It was just how we worked.

I had also never been accused of trying to sleep with Hisako, so that rendered her example moot, "I start most of that, plus it's never serious," I said, waving off her reference as swiftly as possible, "I'm talking about the kind of person that looks for reasons to get mad and be pissed off about something. Girls with no chill."

Megan knew gossip when she heard it and gave me a little nudge to get more out of me, "Got any names to go with that?" She asked, leaning in close to coax it out of me.

Not a chance. I kept lists like that to myself. The only people who needed to know I had enemies were myself and said enemies, "Sure! If you want that to be your next question. I gave you that last extra one as a freebie."

"So stingy," She stuck her tongue out playfully before realizing how close we'd gotten. I'd realized it before she had. I could feel the heat coming off of her, could see the color in her cheeks, "Hey... can I ask you one more question?"

We were so close, I could tell where she was looking on my face when her eyes strayed from mine, "You can do anything you want."

I couldn't believe that had just come out of my mouth. It took a herculean effort to keep from licking my lips, no matter how self-conscious I felt about the chance that they were dry. I had to be cool, even as Megan took a deep breath and started to move in closer.

'Oh shit! What the fuck do I do now?' I remembered as the exact thoughts that shot through my head at that moment, until a good shot of 'whatever' attitude filled my system, 'How about you quit being a bitch and let it happen? This is a good thing.'

I was absolutely right. I was being a bitch. A pretty girl was moving in to kiss me, and I was freaking out? What the hell was my problem. This was a good thing. It was a great thing. With as much as I admitted aloud to adoring the female form, it was the best thing that had happened to me in months!

All of this thinking occurred over the course of a quarter-second. In the next half-second, it was all rendered moot when the door clicked open and Megan's roommate walked inside.

Hope entered with a yawn, her schoolbag slung over her shoulder. It took her a moment to realize that there had been other people in the room. It surprised her, because I was never there, and Megan had taken to the air just above the bed we'd been sitting on. To her credit, she was at least apologetic.

She held up her hands and slid over to her side of the room to drop her things, "Oops! I didn't know I was interrupting anything! I thought you were going to ask to go into his room, not bring him to ours," So she had known about it. Any goodwill she'd established with me by saying sorry was quickly lost when she plopped down on her bed, posted up to watch, "By all means, continue. Just pretend I'm not here."

Anytime she felt like peeling that grin off of her face would have suited me just fine, "...Are you going to leave?" I asked pointedly.

Hope blew a raspberry and waved me off, "No way. Are you kidding? I've been waiting on her to get the guts to try this for at least a month."

And she would have to wait for that much longer as well, which I was not pleased with. Things quickly got awkward, and I felt the whole deal die off pitifully.

I tried to leave the room, maintaining some semblance of poise as I did so, "I think we can pick this up some other time," I didn't necessarily mean the studying, either, "I'll call you later?" I said/asked, not trying to sound too hopeful.

"I'd like that, Bellamy," I smiled at her and tilted my hat her way old west style. I looked over at Hope who gave me a cheeky wave, along with a 'Bye, Bel,' that came out in the kind of lilt that made me wonder if it was bad form to laser pointer her in the eye really quick. Fortunately, I didn't have to think much about it. I had closed the door and barely taken five steps down the hall when I heard-, "God, Hope, you suck!"

Took the words right out of my mouth, darling.

"Whaaaat? You didn't have to stop on my account. I just would have been a witness."

Knowing how much Megan could talk when she was well motivated to, I knew Hope had an earful ahead of her. Good.

XxX

Nothing made you feel like a boss quite like riding on the back of a big, weaponized metal wolf... not that many other people would ever get to experience such a thing. But if you ever get the chance, I highly recommend it.

For some reason, it had struck me to ask Saberwolf if he would let me do it on this particular day. To my surprise, he agreed, and got down to let me on easily. I expected to get bucked off the moment we got in front of people, but that didn't happen. When my friends came along, we didn't even bring up how unusual it was.

Eventually, after we caught looks from a dozen students passing us by outside, Hisako just had to mention it, "Why are you letting him ride you?"

"It is no bother to me," Wolf replied, "Also, if he gets cut, it is his own fault."

She looked at some of the sharp edges on Wolf, and the blades he kept tucked away on his person. It made her feel better about me sitting upon his back, "Alright then. Carry on."

"I'm just glad you don't have any blades on your back, big guy," I said, patting my A.I. friend, before addressing my mutant friends, "Look at this and tell me it's not awesome!"

"It is awesome," Eddie agreed, "Can he, like, be on our squad?"

I didn't know quite how to respond. I didn't want to speak for Wolf, but it didn't seem like he was eager to do it for himself, "I've asked him. He's not down with it... unless he's changed his mind since the last time... yeah?" I tried to lead him, but he shook his head, "No? Well, that's okay."

As far as I was concerned, he was still a Paladin. He'd been in his fair share of the crap we'd been caught up in at school. He trained with me just as hard as anyone else. Yes, he was one of us.

We had time between final exams and had linked up in between leaving our last ones, so we spent the time shooting the shit before our next ones, "So, are you guys are ready for the dance?" Hisako asked.

Eddie and I both made faces at the prospect of going to that kind of school function, "Ugh," We both said in unison.

Hisako wasn't amused by our blasé attitudes, "Oh, come on," She said, "At least one of you has someone you can actually take to this thing, Bel," She aimed my way.

It didn't matter if I went with Megan or not. I would be miserable and pretending not to be the entire time, "I hate these things. They're always tense and weird and never any fun," Standing around in a school gym in dress clothes surrounded by people dancing to squeaky clean versions of Top 40 hits from six months ago? No thank you, "It'd be more fun if we threw our own party. Then I might actually get something out of it."

"Huh..." Eddie hummed as he looked out on the sprawling quad full of students enjoying the late spring day outside, "...You know, boss man, that's actually not a bad idea," He said.

Hisako recoiled at what we perceived as Eddie's face of reasoning, "What, throw a party? Are you kidding? There's no way we could pull that off."

It was then that I grabbed at my chin in thought. Sure, there were some obstacles-, okay, there were plenty of obstacles, but nothing that we couldn't handle or deal with the consequences of once we were found out, "Not by ourselves we couldn't. We'd have to bring in some help to make it all work."

"Help?"

"Yes, Hisako. Help."

She looked at me skeptically. It was known between the lot of us that we weren't necessarily the cool kids that everyone would jump at doing favors for, "Help from who?"

"You let me worry about that."

"I wonder why that doesn't fill me with any kind of comfort."

Doubt was poisonous, and I would have none of it. The more I tossed the idea of a party around in my head, the more I liked it, "No, I'm serious. Fast Eddie is right. We can do this."

Eddie hovered off of the ground next to Wolf and threw an arm around me, pointing my way, "We have on our side a man that has probably seen every copy-and-paste party movie released over the course of the 90s and 2000s," He said, getting hearty nods of agreement out of me, "I'm offended that you think we can't pull this off."

Hisako looked at us like we were two gigantic idiots, but ran out of energy to debate Eddie on the matter, "Why can't you be this ambitious about anything else? Anything. Almost literally anything, and you could probably get so much more done."

"Oh, we're gonna get something done, alright! Eddie!" Without needing to really be told, he sat down behind me on Wolf's back, "Away!"

I expected Wolf to take off running in the direction I pointed. Instead, Wolf took off flying into the air. He seemed just as alarmed as I was from the way his legs kicked. I looked back at Eddie who was grinning, clearly behind it all.

The son of a bitch was making us fly just like him from contact with him, "I didn't know you could do that!" I yelled, stoked at the new discovery of his powers.

He was very pleased with himself, and with good reason, "I just found out I could! It's awesome!"

Yes, Eddie. Yes it goddamn was.

XxX

Want to make a big impression? Enter on a big metal wolf. Want to make a bigger impression? Fly in on a giant metal wolf. It did my heart good to know that at a school full of mutants with all sorts of powers, I could still present a spectacle. And the best part about presenting a spectacle, while people were stunned at what you'd just done, it gave you time to plead your case, whatever it may be.

Psychological warfare was magical. Not that this was some sort of conflict. Quite the contrary in fact. I came in peace, with a prospect to party. And I brought it to the Hellions – the people I figured would be the most onboard with what I had to say.

"So let me get this straight," Julian said after hearing me out, "You guys want to throw some kind of end-of-exams bash?"

Eddie nodded, still very enthusiastic with the idea, "As many people as we can get in on this thing. If it's even half as good as we want it to be, it's gonna be amazing."

We had talked a lot during the several minutes it had taken us to actually find the Hellions. A lot of ideas had come up, which had only stoked the fires of what had been a spark of a plan.

The silver-skinned girl sat on a picnic table while she'd been listening, "So why come to us?" He asked.

I looked around at the six teenagers in front of me, Eddie, and Wolf, with a vexed look on my face, "Who else would I come to? It's not like there's a whole bunch of people out there that would help," Once I said that, a few of the Hellions looked between each other without saying anything, "What?"

Brian was the first one to speak up, "Dude, you guys don't realize you're on the come-up around here?" He said.

"Huh?" Was all I could think of as a reply. I did not realize that, "What are you talking about?"

"Yeah," Santo chimed in, the large, rocky boy co-signing on his teammate's comment, "All of the shit you guys have been in this semester, you've got some serious cred now. You're almost as cool as we are."

That was news. I certainly hadn't noticed it. Looking over at Eddie and seeing him shrug, I could tell he hadn't either. If anything had changed in regards to our popularity, it hadn't manifested itself in front of our eyes just yet.

Julian took the offer I had presented and ran with it, "Marcher's got a point. Who else knows how to get something like this together but us?"

Santo laughed and held up a fist for Julian to bump, "That's fair. If you wanna get the party started, why not call the Hellions? I like that. I'm in."

The Muslim member of the red squad, Sooraya, raised her hand in order to bow out of the proceedings, "I will choose to sit this out. I do not feel comfortable with the idea of a party."

From interactions with Sooraya, she was a nice girl, but she absolutely didn't fit in with the Hellions. Not that this was a bad thing. There had to be a more levelheaded member of the team to keep things morally straight. As much as possible with a team full of troublemakers at least.

Eddie agreed easily, "That's fair. In that case, don't worry about it. Me and Bel never brought it up to you in particular," There was no need to get anyone in trouble if they didn't want to be involved. There would likely be enough to go around anyway.

From the smile on her face, Cessily was more than willing to take part, "It sounds fun to me. Someone needs to bring up spirits around here. It's too gloomy to be this close to the end of the semester."

Julian addressed the quietest member of his team, the emo-looking guy that Cessily kept closest to, "How about you, Kevin? You want in on this, or are you gonna sit it out?" The leader asked.

Kevin shrank back when all eyes were on him, "Well, it probably will be more fun than than the dance," He didn't sound like he was into it. Not the social type, for whatever reason. Hopefully that would change once we got going.

Eddie snapped his fingers and threw his arms up in celebration, "Yes! Plus, look at it this way. For those hopeless cases like myself, it might be a good chance to find an actual date for that thing."

Once again, Eddie gave me plenty of ammunition to run my mouth, "We're doing the entire school a public service, really," I said, with a confidence that belied the crap that spewed forth from my lips, "Being heroes isn't always about beating up bad guys. Sometimes, it's about helping the little guy, day-to-day."

Even Julian found himself swept up and falling in with our line of B.S., "Of course. And as the upstanding citizens that the Hellions are, there's no way we can let the Paladins do something like that by themselves."

Fantastic. My recruitment drive wound up bearing fruit.

XxX

Putting parties together involved a lot of labor. It wasn't just making sure people showed up. There was a matter of making sure there was stuff to do once people showed up, otherwise they wouldn't be staying for long. Thus, a number of us ventured into Salem Center in order to procure the goods we needed.

Shopping was a complete pain, but it wasn't so bad when you were doing it with other people.

"Do we have enough chips?" Santo asked as we left the store. He easily carried twelve full bags of goodies, looped in one finger of one hand, "This doesn't feel like enough."

Hisako had the least amount of bags to carry, mostly because she had the list that we were going by and keeping track of the money, "Santo, we've got like ten whole giant bags. Unless a bunch of people decide to binge on chips and only chips, I think we're good."

The big rock boy didn't relent on the point he was trying to make, "No, I mean do we have enough kinds of chips? I'm just saying, we might need more than the big three," Which of course was original, barbecue, and sour cream & onion.

"Honestly, we probably could have skipped the sour cream & onion," I said, "I don't see a whole lot of people planning on getting close to anyone eating a lot of those."

Hisako added as we left the supermarket parking lot and walked down the street to our next destination, "We've got lots of other snacks too. There should be a little something here for everybody."

Once the next store we were after came into sight, I got everyone's attention, "Alright. We've got all of the conventional stuff, plus sodas and water for the straight-laced crowd. Now it's time to get the fun stuff."

Julian passed his bags off to Santo with a big grin on his face, "I'm on it," He said, "Anyone who wants anything special when I head in, fork over the cash now. I'm not covering you."

I went into my pocket to fish out my wallet for two $20 bills, "Yeah, get me a bottle of 44˚ North. Check the vodka aisle, playa," No one else had any personal requests. No cheapskates were going to be drinking any of my supply up. They could get their own, "...I'm not sharing either. That's mine, all night long."

"Stingy," Santo said before turning to Julian, "How exactly are we going to get the beer? And how are we getting it all out of here?"

Julian, to his credit, didn't take the easy route of just calling his friend dumb. That was low-hanging fruit, and it wouldn't help anyone, "Okay, Santo... even if I didn't have TK, you can carry a truck over your head. Three kegs is nothing."

Case in point, he was at the moment carrying 4/5ths of our bags by himself on two fingers.

"Oh!" Santo said, chuckling to himself. "Heh, sometimes I forget I'm a mutant."

"How?" I asked, not that it would do any good, "Nevermind. Make with the ID, rich boy. Let's see what we're working with," Julian proudly pulled out his fake. It all seemed to check out to me. Nothing too suspicious, and it didn't have his real name on it. Nothing that would warrant a second glance as long as he played it cool, "...Why are you 22 on this ID?"

"To help throw people off the scent, Marcher," Julian explained as though it were elementary, "This is a professional-grade fake. The people I got this from know all the tricks. It hasn't failed me yet."

Hisako looked at Julian and his fake ID strangely, "How much do you do this? And what people?"

Bah, details. We didn't need all of that right now. What we needed was alcohol, in large amounts, "Hey, hey, hey. Let's just go for it," I said, "We're not cashing a check or anything. We're just flashing the ID so the guy can punch in the birthdate. No big deal. You've got this, Jules."

Julian tucked the ID away and headed off to the ABC Store, "Right. Don't wait up. I'll be back in a bit. And don't call me Jules, assface."

"Sure thing, Julia," I felt a slap come to the back of my head from a disembodied force, "Ow! Fucker!" I aimed my pointer finger at him, about to take a shot in broad daylight before letting it go. There were more important things afoot, "Well, that's handled."

Hisako looked over at me, giving me a mild stinkeye, "Is it? Is it really handled? Because I can't help but feel like you're missing a few things."

I couldn't imagine what I'd missed so far. I had Cessily and Brian doing the legwork to spread the word about what was going to happen that Saturday. Kevin and Eddie were procuring the sound system and the entertainment. Ruth went with Laura and Saberwolf, damned good scouts that they were, to find a place for us to hold the party according to the parameters I had given them. Julian had the beer covered, with me, Santo, and Hisako there in case anything went wrong.

She palmed her forehead and stashed away the list, "How are we going to keep the whole staff from figuring out something is happening, genius? All of the upperclassmen are going to be suspiciously absent that night, and no one's going to be looking for us?"

I made a fake expression of fear, "What are they going to do, use Cerebra to track us all down?" Actually, there was a real chance that that would happen, "Oh, man. They'll actually use Cerebra to track us all down."

Hisako made a little gesture as if to emphasize what she was saying, "Right?"

Santo scoffed, "So what if they do? There's gonna be a hundred kids there. Maybe more. They can't punish all of us."

Hisako rolled her eyes, "They can single out all of the kids in squads. You know, because we should know better, be a good example, all of that."

Santo suddenly stood up straight from his previously lazy, hunched posture, "I didn't think about that. What the hell, Marcher? So we're busted before we start?"

Oh no, they weren't both about to double team a freak out on me, "No! Shut up. Let me think," I said, trying to buy myself a few seconds to come up with something decent, "...We need a diversion."

"Duh. What kind of diversion?" Hisako asked.

Something good, for sure. It would have to be, "We only really need something for Mister Summers and Miss Frost. Dr. McCoy's always spending his days off doing brain guy shit, so he's covered. Mister Logan heads into town to get super-sloppy on the weekends-."

Santo chimed in, "Why do you know any of that?"

I made my answer quick, "Because I don't sleep, so I see everything. Can I finish please? Guys? Please? Please?" The more I was allowed to talk without a filter or without being interrupted, the more the ideas flowed. Both Hisako and Santo went silent for my benefit, "Thank you. So anyway, that leaves the only ones that can bust us without trying being those two."

Mister Summers was a goddamn workaholic. He was always ready, always around the Institute, and he would be quick to notice if something was amiss, even if curfew much less strict for weekend days. Miss Frost had a lot of the same qualities, only she was more likely to leave for New York City or some other big city for fun if she had something that she wanted to do. Getting her to leave would be much easier than getting Mister Summers to.

Wait. She might have been the key to getting him to go too.

I pulled out my phone and quickly began using the internet, my best friend, to get the information I needed, "Hold on. Hold on. This might halfway solve itself," I said. It took a moment, but I found exactly what I needed, "Yes! This is gonna be a layup!"

"What?" Hisako asked, moving over to my side to see what I was seeing. Once she did, her eyes lit up, "Oh. Oh, that's good. That might actually work. How did you even think of that?"

Santo muscled in behind us to get a look over our heads, "Hey, I want to know what's going on too! I can't see, you guys!" I tilted the phone up to give him a decent look as well, "Frost's birthday. Ohhh. I get it."

"Yesssss..." Hisako cheered, squirming in place. It was incredibly hypnotic to watch, "It's on Saturday. Why is it that we only get lucky with useless stuff like this?"

I let out a laugh and put my phone away, "I wouldn't call it completely useless, seeing as how if this didn't break our way we'd be getting the book thrown at our asses."

XxX

I wasn't accustomed to utilizing underhanded means to get an advantage, but damn it, you had to take what you could get when it was given to you. When life pitched a slow, fat ball right across the plate, it was your right as an intrepid young contributing member of society to knock it clear out of the park.

I saw Mister Summers more than I used to after... what had happened on the Breakworld. Without a senior X-Man to lead us, it was up to me to requisition things for training and whatnot. It was far too late in the year to get any kind of replacement, so we were on our own until fall semester started up. Not that it would have mattered anyway. It was way too soon for anyone to replace Miss Pryde without carrying the weight that came with it. None of us were ready for it.

Bah. Too depressing. The point was, I had lots of face time with the man, so that put me in prime position to do my job of planting a certain little seed in his head. It had been suggested that I let Ruth do it, but no. It was too risky. The man had a track record of plowing lady telepaths like it was his job. There was no way she was going to be able to get in and out of his head without killing our plans.

That left it up to someone with the right kind of ability to run their mouth, who wouldn't be out of place talking to him about random stuff. i.e. me.

He caught me pacing around outside of his office one afternoon once exams for that day had let out. It was usually the time I came by to ask him something or drop something off, "Bellamy," He said upon seeing me, "Is there something I can help you with? Exams are going okay, aren't they?"

"I guess they're going okay," I said, "I was just around, and I wanted to get a moment of your time to ask you something quick."

Mister Summers nodded his agreement and unlocked the door to his office, letting me inside, "Sure. That's what my office hours are here for," He said before giving me a deadpan look, "There's nothing happening that'll blow up the school again, is there?" He said dryly.

I waved off the completely legitimate concern, "No. Not this time. I've got a question. It's not really a life-or-death thing. More personal. And if you don't want to answer, that's cool. It's just you're the only person I can think of to legit ask, and-."

He held up a hand to stop me from rambling on, "Go ahead, it's fine. I should probably think about bringing on a guidance counselor or something for the students here anyway. What do you need?"

I sat down in front of his desk as he got comfortable behind it to hear me out, "Well, I was wondering what the rule for birthdays is with girls," He raised an eyebrow underneath his visor in interest and gestured for me to continue, "I mean for me, I hate my birthday. But I'm a miserable jerk, so I ignore everything that goes for me when it comes to normal people."

"Whose birthday did you miss?" Mister Summers offered, a wry smile on his face.

I put on a dejected face to try and sell my story, "I'm pretty sure I missed Hisako's a few weeks ago. It'd explain why she's been pissy with me lately," Not entirely a lie. Hisako had been pissy with me lately... on and off, but that was how we always were. Her birthday wasn't actually until November, "So I'm figuring there's some kind of rule there, even if you're not dating the girl."

It seemed like Mister Summers was actually happy to give some advice that didn't involve anyone fighting or getting hurt, "Now this is just from me, so your mileage may vary," He said, "It matters more the closer you are to a girl. The more important she is to you and you are to her, the more likely it is you should go out of your way to get her something or do something nice for her."

That was actually decent advice, "Shit. Well, at least I know for next time. Not like I can do anything about it now without making it worse. I guess I'll just say sorry somehow later," Now here was the important part. This one had to hit deep, yet subtly, "Man, why do you always have everything in control? I bet you've got something baller planned for Miss Frost this weekend."

Mister Summers' entire face and posture froze up, "What?"

I gave him a weird look, as if to wonder why he needed me to tell him what I was saying, "Miss Frost's birthday. It's Saturday," He tried to hide it, but I caught the wince, "...Y-You didn't know that?"

It took everything I had to keep a straight face. I couldn't crack now. Things were going too well to let anything suspicious slip.

Mister Summers didn't admit to not remembering, instead trying to move things back onto me, "Why do you know that?"

The internet. More specifically, the directory open to all students. Not that I said that, "Hellions," I said with a shrug, enough confidence behind it to sound like the truth, "...My bad. I didn't mean to freak you out."

Yes I did. I totally did. Dance for me, puppet X-Man. Do Bellamy's bidding and get your ass out of town so I can throw a mutant rager.

"I'm not freaked out, Bellamy, don't worry," He said before chuckling nervously, probably feeling like he'd just dodged a bullet, "Though I probably owe you one for jogging my memory. I've still got a few days to come up with something good before the weekend."

"Oh, no problem! Glad I could help. I was the one who came for help myself," And he gave it to me, or he would when he took her out for a night on the town in the big city Saturday. A woman like Miss Frost would want something splendorous, "I've pissed off Miss Frost enough times to not wish that on anyone unless I really don't like 'em."

With my problem solved, I said goodbye and left the room, keeping my wits about me until I was back in the comfortable confines of the student dorm area. In the common area, I found Eddie sitting around watching TV with Ruth, who was doing the same, leaning against a sleeping Saberwolf on the floor.

I cleared my throat, getting the attention of my friends.

Eddie set his magazine aside and jumped up with a nervous expression, "Did it work?" I nodded, and a sigh of relief came from him before he pointed at me, "For the love of God, someone 'too sweet' that man!"

He flew over and did it himself. When Ruth registered my presence, she got up and jumped on my back. She weighed next to nothing to me, but for the sake of messing around, I let her drag me down to the ground so we could grapple.

Eddie ignored the two of us goofing off in exchange for rubbing his hands together, daydreaming of what we had ahead of us, "This is gonna be so awesome. Would you two stop rolling around already? Celebrate with me, damn it!"

I was a bit busy. Ruth was still behind me, legs wrapped around my waist trying to sink in a choke. I could peel her arms away from my throat with one hand, "Damn it, girl, you cannot fight me. You're miniature," She didn't answer me, instead focusing on trying to playfully establish dominion over yours truly.

Ruth was getting to be okay at martial arts. She was better at grappling than striking. Unfortunately, I trained every damn night to offset insomnia-caused boredom.

I trapped Ruth's ankle between my legs and reached back to pull off her shoe and tickle her bare foot. She laughed out loud until she let go and surrendered. Not exactly a recognized hold in any formal martial art, but it was good enough to get her to give up, begging me to stop the entire time, "She gives up, yes! Stop, please! Bellamy!"

"And that's how you do that," I got up, picked Ruth up off of the ground under one arm, kicking and fighting the whole way, and dropped her on the couch, "Would you be good already?" I sat down next to her and she quickly squirmed behind me. This time, I let her sink in a rear naked choke. She had the good grace to not squeeze down on it, "We're good to go."

Eddie floated above our heads lazily, "Seeing as how Blindfold here hasn't let us onto any visions of shit going sideways, I'd say so," He knocked on the wooden table for good measure, "By the way, they found a spot that works. Saberwolf took me there after my exams, and it is so choice."

I still couldn't believe Ruth of all people managed to get Laura and Saberwolf to help her scout party locations. Well, I could believe she could get Saberwolf. He was a complete softy for her, but Laura seemed way too antisocial to help out.

I hummed and gave her a pat on the thigh, "Huh. Good for you, Ruthie," That was the moment she squeezed down, "*hack* It's supposed to cut off circulation, not air!"

Despite Eddie being in good position to make it stop, he clearly took pleasure in watching this happen, "Then why is it called a choke?"

I fell over on the couch and glared up at my wingman as I fought the psychic girl on my back for oxygen, "Hate you guys..."

Alright guys. That's it for this chapter. You see? It ain't always about the action and the violence. I've got to throw some dumb day-to-day stuff in there too. Remember, this is all in a bid to test and amuse myself. I just hope other people enjoy the byproduct.

Kenchi out.