Disclaimer: I do not own Marvel or X-Men. Is the superhero movie boom soon to end? I say it will be a slow decline, but a decline nevertheless. As far as Marvel movies go, Infinity War and Endgame aren't going to be topped. Even if they could be with the proper layout, viewers probably aren't going to have the patience for another building period to get to that point again.

Just my two cents, and as you all know, two cents can't buy you anything.

Chapter 34: A Higher Calling

People usually saw Eddie floating and flying his way across campus, so his powers of flight weren't really played up as anything particularly unique. And that was true, the power of flight in of itself wasn't particularly notable. But here's the thing – my boy could haul ass when he wanted to.

At top speed, he was the fastest person in the student body at this time. Without needing to temper his speed to follow someone else, Eddie made it back to school in a fraction of the time it took us to get to Westchester.

The three of us were lucky. Eddie brought us down to hide in the trees alongside the main road leading to Xavier's. Their attention was all on the school itself. Even the people posted outside were more concerned with handling anyone who seemed to be making a run for it than trying to keep anyone from getting in. We scoped out three of these 'containment units'. Two were made of militia-looking Sapien League fighters. One was made of the robed Purifiers.

Of course those two groups were working together. Why not? Both wanted to kill all mutants. What else did they need to get along?

Speaking of groups, why were the Avengers never around when this shit happened?

We got a head count of thirty. How many more were waiting inside the walls? Inside the school itself? I didn't want to risk Eddie having to fly overhead to try and do any recon. We could hear tons of gunshots from where we were.

"So? Any ideas?" Eddie eventually asked as we all hid, "We could probably fly over all of this and get to the buildings."

Perhaps, but no. We needed to provide some relief. If there were this many goons stomping around on the lawn, something was wrong inside and we would just be putting ourselves in the same position. If they needed some relief, we could at least provide a diversion. At best, if we played things right, we could put a huge dent in the enemy.

"Wolf, get in position to get the drop on those guys in the suits," I requested. His chances of taking on more than one of them at the same time was better than ours. He also had a better chance of finishing them quickly, "Eddie, Anyone in a robe with a big, white cross on it? Shoot first. Anyone in fatigues with a stupid Jason mask on? Shoot first. Shoot to kill."

Eddie didn't like it, but now wasn't the time to try and be the bigger person, "What about him?" He gestured to Jay.

A good question. Jay didn't have a weapon, and didn't really have powers that would help in a fight. He didn't even look like he wanted to fight, "Jay, you're our runner. Once we get their attention, get away and get inside to the others."

He wasn't as spooked as he had been at Stryker's church, but the kid was still rattled, whether it was by the danger ahead of us, or his part in what was happening. He listened enough to nod in understanding.

In a perfect world, he would get to someone who could fight back from the inside, and they would meet up with us outside before our luck ran out. Saberwolf might have been a war machine, but Eddie and I weren't.

Eddie and I moved a little ways away from Jay, so that when the shooting started, all of the bad guys wouldn't be looking in his general direction. There was a lot of wide open ground with no cover. We had to move.

"Dude, I'm so scared," Eddie revealed, his voice quivering slightly. He looked like he wanted to bolt, but he stood his ground, "I've been running my mouth for a year and a half about how good of an X-Man I'd be. Now we're here."

We all didn't have the benefit of having our mental wires telepathically adjusted like I did, "Wanna know a secret to keep from psyching yourself out? Stop thinking and go," I said to him, "Once you start, you can't stop."

I wasn't sure if I'd helped any, but Eddie had already made his decision. He was in it until the end, whatever that so happened to be. As far as I was concerned that made him braver than I was, "So, what's the play? We going with 'bug zapper'? How about 'scorched earth'?"

I started forming a Lux Bomb between my hands. Eddie's eyes lit up at the sight of it, "How about we start with 'death from above'?" He moved into position to pick me up, "Find a nice grouping. I don't want to waste this."

With that, we lifted off of the ground, over the walls and onto the grounds of the school. There were crater holes and fires all over the grass. There was fire and smoke visible from some of the buildings as well. It looked more like the battleground that it was than a place of education.

Eddie, eagle eye that he was, found me a fat, juicy target. Forget needing Wolf to take out any of the armored suits in the area. There were four of them gathered near the trucks that had presumably brought them.

I let the bomb drop, and Eddie didn't slow down a bit, knowing we needed to get as far away from the blast radius as we could. And what a blast it was. I couldn't turn around to look at it, but I could feel the shockwave and the heat.

Eddie let go of me, and I fell to the ground in a roll. He flew off to do his own thing as enemies approached the site of the blast. They were more focused on the explosion, which gave me a chance to wipe a few squads before they knew what hit them, thinning as many of the herd as I could before they got eyes on me.

"There he is!"

Luck couldn't hold out forever, and I heard the calls of people who had seen me. A hail of bullets soon followed from more than one direction, and I took cover by the recently created wreckage. It was something to protect me, at least. Thank goodness the trucks were armored. Now they were the ones caught out in the open. I waited for anytime I heard someone run out of ammunition and took a potshot at them. Still, they were closing in. The Purifiers especially, zealots they were, had little problem with putting themselves at risk to try and take me out.

It seemed like the Purifiers were serving as the elites, due to their training and resources, while the Sapien League were the rank-and-file due to their numbers. All brought together by their desire to kill off mutants. Heartwarming.

"Sol!" Eddie swooped down and lifted me up out of my position. He used the rising clouds of black smoke to cover our departure. Good man, "Are we winning?"

While we were in the air, I caught sight of Wolf. Watching him run a serpentine pattern into a group of desperately firing Sapien League gunmen before cutting them down was downright majestic.

"I sure as hell hope so," I said as I gawked at Wolf, "If we're still losing while all that's going down, I don't want to know what it'll take to turn it around."

"Shit! Sol, look!"

The area near the pool had been turned into a killbox, with three X-Men trapped; Cannonball, Wolfsbane, and Bishop. Somehow, only one of them, Bishop, was standing. He dragged the two others behind him, trying to get to some kind of safe place. He would periodically turn and fire, but it wasn't enough to get the Sapien League off of him.

I blasted the ones I could see from the air, which was a mistake. They turned their gunfire onto Eddie and I, and he paid the price for it.

A shot managed to hit me in the arm and side. Eddie took a bullet to the leg, which brought us both down to the ground hard, "Son of a bitch!" Eddie exclaimed, clutching at the new wound.

"Ugh," I grunted and pulled myself up. My right side was screwed, but I still had the left. With the one hand I had, I kept approaching militia off of us until we could get to Bishop and company, just inside of the nearest building. What a rescue.

Bishop roughly yanked the two of us out of the line of fire, "What are you two doing outside? Students in squads should be guarding the other kids!"

"We weren't even here when any of this started!" Eddie yelled, taking his shirt off to wrap around his leg as a tourniquet, something I neglected to do with my arm, "What happened to them?" He asked, referring to Cannonball and Wolfsbane.

They didn't have any bullet wounds, but both seemed right at death's door, "Stryker had some kind of glove. I don't know how, but it put Sam down mid-flight. Get 'em to the main mansion building!"

I knew how to follow orders from someone who outranked me. Even so, I still had concerns, "What about you? Are you seriously gonna take these guys by yourself?"

Bishop scoffed at me, hardly bothered at having to deal with six heavily armed assailants on his own, "The day I need two kids to save my ass..." He paused to fire a shot at a Sapien League soldier, dropping the number to five heavily armed assailants, "Go!"

I gathered up Cannonball and threw him over my shoulders. Eddie grabbed Wolfsbane. Thankfully, he didn't need full use of both legs to fly. Also, as a plus, he was quieter floating in the air than I was on foot. That was good, because it didn't take much longer to run into more trouble.

I peeked around a corner and found three militia and one Purifier working their way through the halls, the latter of which was equipped with a flamethrower.

"Okay," I whispered to Eddie as quietly as possible, "Our options are to go back outside and work our way around, or move straight through the dorms."

Eddie looked at me as though I were insane, "Why I want to go back outside to the killing field?"

I jerked my thumb in the direction of the bad guys, "Because there's a dude with a flamethrower clearing rooms."

Eddie's solution was simple, "So? Shoot him."

What a blunt and violent response, "And blow up the-?" From the look on Eddie's face, he no longer cared if our actions killed the people there to kill us. Getting shot probably did that to you, "Alright. Hold on."

The tank of the flamethrower was an easy target. I pierced it with a laser from barely peeking around the corner. The explosion was loud, fantastic, and destructive. As it would undoubtedly attract attention, Eddie and I quickly booked it then thereafter. Anyone we ran across from that point forward expected trouble farther away, so when they suddenly turned and found us, they were hardly prepared for my quickdraw blasts.

We eventually pushed our way into the main mansion. Once we made it to the open staircase in one of the great halls, we found ourselves trapped in a killbox by a force field, with fireballs then thrown our way, "Whoa-whoa-whoa!" I yelled, dodging the flames.

The sound of my panic voice must have been familiar to someone, "Holy shit, it's Solaris and Wing! Match, let up on the fireballs!"

"Yeah, stop trying to kill us!" I snapped, "Someone get down here and get these two off of us!"

Our attackers from upstairs were revealed to be Ben and Mark from the Paragons - Megan's teammates. I would have recognized Ben's flaming head from anywhere. If they had a negative opinion of me after the breakup, the dire situation the school was in set that aside.

Ben was quick to recognized Wolfsbane as one of the two we carried in, "Miss Sinclair! What happened?" He asked, taking his squad advisor off of Eddie's hands.

"I don't know," I took the chance to set Cannonball down to try and nurse my own wounds for a moment, "We flew back and found the fucking place on fire," Mark changed the kind of music he played through his headphones and began tending to Wolfsbane's injuries, "...Huh. Didn't know you had healing powers, DJ."

"It's the classical tunes, man," Mark said with a grin, Beethoven blaring from his player. It was then he finally noticing that Eddie was bleeding through the shirt he'd tried to wrap off his leg with, "Whoa. You got shot."

Eddie nodded stiffly, a grit to his teeth as tried to manage the pain, "We both got shot. Sol's hit worse than me."

I shooed Mark away before he could waste time dealing with me, "Sol's also tougher than you. Heal your teacher and Cannonball, then Eddie," Mark went to Cannonball next, seemingly heeding my advice, "So, the Paragons are watching this part of the building. How's it looking so far?"

Ben scowled at the direction we had come from, "We fell back to the main mansion. All of the student squads were given a spot to hold if the Purifiers pushed through. We were assigned here and set up a defense in depth deal. Mark and I are the first line, Megan and Nicky are the second line, Hope and Jessie are our runners."

Speaking of runners... "Have you guys seen Icarus?" I asked, "We sent him ahead to send word that we were going to fight our way in," He had to have made it. We couldn't have made more noise on our way in than we did.

Mark looked at the two of us with wide eyes, "You guys are why the pressure from outside let up? Nice!" He congratulated with a pat on the back for Eddie before getting to work on his leg.

"It's probably Saberwolf," I told him. Our resident A.I. and security worker was likely hard at work taking a chunk out of the scum outside, "Guys, how did this start?"

Ben and Mark looked at each other before the latter explained "There were explosions in the dorms before the sun came up. Then guys just started storming the school. It was a mess."

Smoke began to pour off of Ben's flaming head, showing how angry he was, "By the time everyone got their heads together enough to realize what was happening, they were in one of the dorms, shooting the place up."

I didn't want to know how many kids had been caught off-guard and cut down in the process. We'd moved past enough bodies on our way to the main mansion.

We didn't have orders, and we couldn't sweep the entire attack force off of the field on our own. As far as what was next, Eddie and I were at a loss, "What now, Sol?" He asked, "Do we link up with our team?"

It was as good an idea as any, "I guess so. I mean, we're in here now," Finding the girls probably should have been a priority once we'd arrived.

I got up to leave, when Mark went to stop us, "Wait, what about Solaris? I didn't heal him yet."

I wanted to just go, but Eddie fixed me with a look that showed he would have none of me running my wounded ass any farther around the mansion, "Alright. Thanks, DJ."

I'd lost quite a bit of blood by that point. The side of my shirt and jeans were soaked in blood. Probably the inside of my jacket as well.

The doors to the great hall blew open, knocking all four of us to the floor. I looked up to find Reverend Stryker marching in with an entourage of two Purifiers in armored exoskeletons. Look who finally made it to the battle. If their side were losing now, he seemingly didn't know it by the way he walked in like he owned the place.

Both rightfully pissed, Ben and I got up and fired at them with both hands, only for a pink force field from Stryker to stop our blasts. Neither of us bothered asking what it was. The only thing that mattered was that our combined firepower did nothing. Ben and Mark grabbed Wolfsbane, while Eddie and I got Cannonball out of there, dodging bullets and pink blasts by the skin of our teeth.

"What the fuck was that?" Ben yelled as we continued falling back, "Stryker stopped both of our attacks!"

I remembered Bishop said something about a glove Stryker was wearing. Indeed, there had been a glowing pink gauntlet on the man's arm. That thing had enough stopping power to put down two pretty tough mutants and could protect him from my and Ben's best shot.

"Dude, you're still bleeding," Eddie pointed out as we continued dragging our respective X-Men through the halls.

So I was. At least Mark had gotten the wound that really mattered - the one in my side. I could deal with a hole in the arm for the time being. We weren't going to get another chance for Mark to patch me up. Not without dropping our troubles onto someone else who might have been less equipped to deal with it than we were.

I stopped walking ahead and gave Eddie the entirety of Cannonball's weight, "We can't just lead Stryker farther in."

Eddie leaned himself and the unconscious man against the wall, "We can't turn and fight either. We've got two half-dead liabilities here."

Ben interjected with his opinion, "You guys can get Miss Sinclair and Cannonball somewhere safe. Solaris and I can fight. We've got to try."

I'd already made my decision. Whether someone was going to fight with me or not, I didn't care. I honestly would have felt better had no one backed me up. Then I'd only be responsible for myself. Ben was the leader of his own squad though.

The X-Men had their hands full. We couldn't count on them to save us when they were trying to protect everyone else too. Besides, I'd wanted to slap the taste out of Stryker's mouth since I first saw him on TV. I wasn't taking another step back without taking a shot at something along the way.

We didn't have to wait very long for more action. Styrker's entourage stomped through the halls, and Ben was good and angry. The moment he saw the metal frame of the exoskeletons, he let loose with fire blasts, "Raaagh!"

All this did was set them on us. The fire didn't do any damage by itself, but it did sidetrack them enough for me to throw a light blade down the corridor. I managed to nail it in an arm joint, less protected by armor to allow for mobility, cutting right through it... and the actual limb underneath.

"AAAAGGH! MY ARM!"

The man inside of the suit stumbled around wildly, swinging his stump of an arm around. Stryker had to move back behind the other exoskeleton who had to catch his buddy to keep from being knocked into. This immobilized him enough for me to throw a second light blade that destroyed the hydraulics in the first suit's legs.

Both exoskeleton suits went down under the sudden loss of stability. I grinned and moved in to finish the job, only to neglect one important thing.

When we had first come across them, Eddie had mentioned that we didn't know what they were armed with. Well, it turned out, they were armed with powerful laser cannons. The still functional exoskeleton lifted its cannon arm to fire at me. In a panic, I fired my own return blast as quickly as I could. Mine lost, exploding on contact with the enemy's, basically right in my face.

The positive was that their shot hadn't actually hit me, and I could endure being in the vicinity of my own explosive blasts. The negative was that Ben had also been nearby and had been affected by the blast as well. He went flying out of a previously broken window and out onto the lawn. I, on the other hand, bounced off of a wall. More accurately, I bounced off of a window frame and then off of the floor.

Why couldn't I ever get the gentler landing into nice, soft grass and dirt? No, I always had to fall into broken glass and chunks of brick and mortar. It was oddly comfortable to lay there though, once my body had gotten comfortable.

I turned my head to look at my enemies. The second exoskeleton was up and moving, while the first was still down and disabled. Good work, me.

"How is Cameron?" Reverend Stryker asked, standing over the downed exoskeleton as the still functioning one tried to tend to it.

"He's not going to make it, Reverend," The man said to Stryker, "The mutant nearly severed his arms and legs through the suit. He's bleeding out."

Stryker kneeled down by the man and opened the machine to reach the dying man inside, "Cameron, can you hear me? Son, rest easy knowing you've earned your place by God's side. You need not suffer any longer."

I took the chance to pull myself up and look out of the window Ben flew out of. He hadn't moved since his body had come to rest. I could see him breathing though. However, that left me alone. Stryker heard my feet crush debris on the ground and turned just as I took a shot at him. His damned glove protected him and his armored escort.

He blasted me with a pink beam that I was in no position to avoid. I then saw how it put down two fully-fledged X-Men with ease. Not only did it hurt like hell, it drained me of everything I had. It had been so long since I'd felt physical fatigue. My body just gave out, and that was that. No force of will was going to get me back up. Even trying to move my arms nearly made me black out.

...Did I just lose? It felt like I'd lost, because in my experience, losing usually hurt that badly.

Stryker calmly walked over, now seemingly unaffected by the death of one of his acolytes. Instead, he preferred to preen at the wanton destruction he had wrought, "I'm so glad you could make it back here to witness this. The devil's sanctum, brought down around the hellspawn army it was meant to raise. And you made quite the mess as well. You and your friend, Edward."

"It was a pleasure," I managed to say weakly. If I was going to die, I was going to be as annoying as possible about it.

Stryker chuckled, "As is this for me. There's always something to enjoy about doing God's work," He raised a clenched fist with his gauntleted arm, "My only regret is that your teacher couldn't be here to see this herself," He looked down at me with disdain, "A student of Katherine Pryde... the X-Man who almost cost Heaven its most important warrior."

"...And here I thought pride was a sin, and humility was a virtue," I held back a cry of pain as the Purifier in the exoskeleton grabbed me by the neck and threw me against the wall where I slumped to the floor and sat.

Stryker walked over and kneeled down in front of me, face-to-face, "I was a soldier. A crusader. One of God's chosen to fight in the war against Satan. But then I strayed. An X-Man caused me to doubt my role in this war," His breath was gross, and he kept spitting when he talked, "Your teacher convinced me to cast myself into Limbo, and worse, she convinced me that God was wrong."

I wished I had enough strength to rear back and headbutt him. As I was, it wouldn't even have been a decent hit, "She should have killed you."

"What she did was worse!" He gave me a hard shake, bouncing my head off of the wall, "I had questioned everything I knew to be true, and for my actions, the Lord punished me. I begged him for forgiveness, but he answered my prayers with silence. I was lost. I believed God had cast me out of his kingdom. But I was wrong. God gave me a second sign."

From how he held it up in my face, he meant his gauntlet thing, "...I love Nintendo too, but the Power Glove is the worst accessory they ever made," He didn't think I was very funny from how he grabbed my head and pumped pink energy into my face, "AAAAAAHHHH!"

It hurt, to say the least. It was the exact same feeling as the first time, only this time, the focal point was through every orifice in my head. I thought I was dead. I wanted to die. But he wasn't done taking out his frustrations on me that he couldn't on Miss Pryde.

Last time I checked, wrath was also a sin.

By the time he let go, I could barely hear the rest of Stryker's impromptu sermon, "This is but one part of a gift. One greater than I could have ever imagined," He said, "Mutants are growing in number, destroying the Eden God left for us humans before our eyes. This is just one part of the bounty God has bestowed upon his soldiers to fight back. The future will be restored to the Lord's chosen."

I was about to pass out. Probably about to die. The last thing I wanted to have rattling around in my brain for the rest of eternity was Reverend Stryker's voice, "Hey... really quick. What color are my eyes?"

I didn't care what his answer would have been. I didn't even wait for him to give me one, or to spout whatever mean-spirited remark he could think up. I channeled energy to my palms and fired an explosive shot.

The 'good' reverend gasped. He fell back away from me, missing his left arm and a good chunk of his right side. I couldn't move my arms, couldn't even feel them, but my palms had at least been pointed upwards. I didn't need to aim. I didn't care what I hit. He was a squishy human. Historically, whatever I blasted on baseline humans wasn't staying attached.

Moron. Why would you get that close to someone like me when I was still breathing? His little super glove didn't do jack if he didn't make it do anything himself.

"Good," I rasped, pleased with myself, "That means I had at least one more of those left in me."

Despite my vision starting to flicker, I could see him convulsing from shock and choking on his own blood. His legs kicked and his body writhed. It wasn't a very noble sight. Fitting for him. To be honest, the sounds of him thrashing and gurgling were downright therapeutic. Ringtone material, right there.

"REVEREND!" The last man standing in the exoskeleton cried once he saw his leader begin to die on the floor, "YOU DEMON!" He stomped over to squash me underneath his foot instead of just shooting me. My death was not about to be clean.

Well, if I was going to die, at least I blew the organs out of the guy who started it. I could be satisfied with getting killed after cutting the head off of this particular serpent.

I couldn't quite see, but I could hear the unpleasant sound of metal forcefully warping. The last time I checked, I wasn't made of metal, so it wasn't me. I tried to focus my eyes enough to see a few feet ahead of me.

If you've ever seen a busted can of biscuits; that was what this suit looked like. Only, instead of the raw biscuits popping out, it was circuits and machinery.

Wrapped around the middle of the ruined piece of weaponry were the mighty metal arms of Colossus. Arms I then found myself picked up into once the ruined exoskeleton was thrown aside. He was not a comfortable man to be held by, at least not when he was metal, "God... Bellamy, what have they done to you?"

Painful shit. That was what. But if it hadn't been me, it would have been someone else. In fact, there had been people before me, "...How'd you know where I was?"

"Ruth picked up on you when you arrived. I went to get you and Eddie," Mister Rasputin explained, "You two moved a lot. Had to fight way across the grounds."

So, we could have had help if we'd just hunkered down and stayed in one spot? Well I didn't know that at the time. And I'd made things harder for him.

"Sorry," I apologized.

Mister Rasputin brushed the apology off easily enough, "Eddie found me. And he sent me here, to you."

I loved that big Russian S.O.B. I don't care what anyone said. Mister Rasputin was the best.

I turned my head to try and look over his shoulder, "Ben is-."

"He will be fine," Mister Rasputin turned so that I could see that Ben was being tended to, "This is not your problem any longer."

The sounds of battle that had been so overwhelming when I'd arrived were notably more distant. Were the Purifiers and the Sapien League running away? I wanted to get up and go at them. Even if whatever was left of them hadn't fired a shot on school grounds, they were just as accountable as the prick with the biggest body count based off of intent.

But Mister Rasputin was right. I was basically an invalid, so I was no good in a fight. All I could do was lay back and let him carry me somewhere safe for the rest of the battle.

XxX

16 students died.

5 died by exploding from the Legacy Virus that Jay had unwittingly Trojan Horse'd into the school. Two more died from being caught in the explosions. Nine had been killed when the Purifiers and the Sapien League stormed the dorms.

It had been six months since the last group funeral on campus. It had sucked then, it sucked now. It was actually worse, because I knew Kevin more than I knew the other kids that died when the Danger Room had gone nuts. I knew him better than I knew the other kids that had died here.

We weren't close, but we'd hung out sometimes. We'd eaten lunch together. He'd been with the Hellions when they'd helped me save Laura. The guy had never been a ray of sunshine, but to go out like that?

Of the kids that died, only Kevin and another student were buried in the graveyard on campus. They didn't have anywhere to go, no one to take them.

The next day, I limped my ass to the graveyard for the ceremony and stood with my team all dressed up for the ceremony. All of the Hellions were distraught, especially Cessily. The poor girl was bawling through the entire funeral. Eddie stayed with her the whole time. Even though she was dating Eddie, a part of her might have still liked Kevin.

Jay wasn't anywhere in sight. Not with the New Mutants, or anywhere else. I had no idea what had happened to him, and to be honest, I didn't care. He might have been tricked by Stryker, but his desperation for answers no one could give and a quick fix for what he saw as a personal existential problem got others killed. It might have been cruel to think that way, but as far as I knew he wasn't going six feet under the ground the way others were.

Eddie would have broken his jaw if he'd caught sight of him. I couldn't say I'd be able to blame him for it.

In the aftermath of the funeral, we stood watching the cleanup of the school grounds. Bodies and equipment were moved after the battle had ended, but part of the dorms and the mansion needed to be fixed.

"I still don't get it," I said, sitting on the railing of a balcony, overlooking the front lawn, "Even with what Jay gave Stryker as far as intel, why would he ever think he could just walk in here and do what he did?"

A floating Eddie scoffed at the sight of the derelict campus, "He got pretty fucking close, dude."

Hisako leaned with her elbows on the railing nearby, "They had anti-telepath implants. And that glove Stryker had wasn't just a weapon. Why do you think none of the automated defenses were active when you got here? He took them all offline with that thing right at the start."

That explained so much in hindsight. There would have been way more damage on the lawn had the defenses been active. More Purifier/Sapien League bodies as well.

"How did you guys hold up during?" I asked, giving Hisako a nudge.

"Better than you and Eddie," Hisako said with a small smile, "They split us up when they found you two weren't with us. They had me helping to escort the younger kids. You know, protecting them underneath the mansion," The last line of defense, as it were.

Ruth spoke up from where she sat in a chair, "She was assigned with the other telepaths, yes. She got to see Miss Frost use Cerebra."

I nodded and turned to Laura, who stood a little bit off by herself by the corner, "What about you, Laura?"

"The front lines," The green-eyed girl replied, "I ran across Saberwolf and fought alongside him. He was very effective," She sounded impressed.

I could only imagine what that team must have looked like on the battlefield. Blood and body parts everywhere. I needed video of that action.

"Hey," Eddie complained, "Sol and I kicked plenty of ass too."

"You two got shot," Hisako deadpanned.

Eddie did not dispute that fact, "-And DJ healed us. Neither are things I told my parents about when they called me," He said resolutely, "I'm not getting yanked out of here after all of this."

Hisako's expression turned to one of worry, "A lot of parents are pulling their kids out of the school."

I couldn't blame them. What happened was all over the news. I'd had the same conversation with my parents the day before, after the attack. It started before dawn, ended before noon, and was news by the evening. Luckily by then, I was fixed enough that I could tell them everything was fine without my voice giving away my real condition.

I didn't tell them how many kids died. I didn't tell them that one of the kids that died had been an acquaintance of mine.

I didn't have to tell them I'd been shot. I didn't have to tell them that I'd almost been killed by a world-famous religious leader. I didn't have to tell them that I'd made that religious leader into a religious corpse.

I didn't have to tell them that the only thing I'd felt once I'd killed a man was a sense of satisfaction that he wouldn't hurt anyone else ever again. They would have pulled me out so quickly, I'd have been on a plane before I hung up the phone.

What would taking me out of Xavier's do for me at this point? Even if I wanted to go, which I absolutely didn't, you couldn't just stick me back into a regular school and have me readjust.

No, for better or worse, I was here now. This place was mine. My friends were here. What I wanted was here. I wasn't about to roll over and give it up because it was dangerous.

XxX

Debriefings were always fun, especially after people died. At least everyone was given a few days before having to give any kind of after-action report. My (and I imagined Eddie's) story was a bit different from everyone else's – more comprehensive. At least we could give them a different point of view. We told them about Stryker's church on day one, but the reminder was probably welcome. The police were probably all over that site in the hours after the battle.

So, yeah," I said, bringing my own explanation of things to an end, "I saw Jay fly off and got Eddie to catch up to him, and Saberwolf to track him. Sorry for taking Wolf. You probably could have used him sooner."

It was a rarity for this debriefing, as I was meeting with both Mister Summers and Miss Frost. Usually I only dealt with one of them at a time, even when I really screwed up. Almost never both together.

"Actually, Saberwolf being away at the start of the attack might have saved him," Mister Summers said, "Had he been here when the attack started, I believe he may have been taken offline by Stryker's weapon as well."

Something I did actually helped in the grand scheme of things, instead of making things worse? I would take that small victory. Pleasantries didn't last, however.

"Have you thought about leaving the school?" Miss Frost asked bluntly. Her stare was intense.

I didn't think too much of whatever intent was behind it. A lot of kids left. More could still go, "My parents want me to. I said no, at least not until things settle down," I told them, "...I think that'll buy me until at least the end of the semester to get them to calm down or for me to come up with a good reason to let me stay."

Both of them seemed to relax at that. Even Mister Summers, who I couldn't tell had been more tense than usual. The guy always seemed to have a stick of some sort of length up his butt.

"That's good to hear," Mister Summers said, "Honestly, we asked you here to talk about... an opportunity that we think you would be good for."

"An opportunity?" I raised an eyebrow. He wasn't good at being vague, "That sounds ominous."

Mister Summers tried to wave off my concerns, "Not at all. It's something you've been preparing for anyway, and if you apply yourself, I know you'll be a perfect fit."

I continued to stare, as he was deliberately not telling me what the fuck it was that I was supposed to be perfect for. It didn't take long for Miss Frost to lose her patience for the byplay, "Oh, for goodness sake, Scott. Stop beating around the bush and tell the poor boy what he's here for already."

Mister Summers' face twisted into a frown, which I can only imagine was accompanied by a roll of his eyes behind his visor, "We want you to lead a team of students."

It took a little while for me to catch onto what he was throwing my way, "...But I already lead a team of students," I said dumbly.

This time, Miss Frost turned on me, "Now you're just being intentionally obtuse," She said, simplifying it for me further, "A team of students hand-chosen from the training squads."

Mister Summers nodded in confirmation, "That's right. After everything that's happened, we think we've seen enough to determine which of you are fit to be X-Men. Officially."

They seemed to expect me to be excited or nervous. Instead, I started laughing... which they had not anticipated, "Alright, who said no before me?"

"No one. You're the first choice," Mister Summers said, sounding a bit confused at my reaction, "After discussing the matter with squad advisors and Dr. Garrison, Emma and I determined that out of the active student body, you're the best candidate we have."

I still wasn't convinced, "Seriously, where's the camera?" I chuckled, "Is Punk'd still a thing? Or is this some reboot rip-off with superheroes?"

Neither of them smiled, and Ashton Kutcher's bitch ass hadn't sauntered out of a side room yet to scream in my face, proving that they were serious, and sobering me up.

"...You're not going with Julian?" I asked, looking at Miss Frost pointedly.

"You're kidding, right?" She replied, shaking her head at the mere thought of it, "I love that boy, but he sees the position for its status more than for its responsibility. I've had a year to observe him. He's fine with the Hellions, but if he led this team, it would be a disaster."

Okay, that was fair enough. But I wasn't out of ammunition in my skepticism gun just yet, "What about David then? He's way smarter than me."

Mister Summers shook his head and gave me a thumbs down, "He didn't even want to lead the New Mutants. That's why leadership is split between him and Sofia. Also, intellect doesn't make for an ideal leader by itself."

"I wouldn't count you out on that front either, darling," Miss Frost interjected with a smirk, "Do remember, we've seen what you're capable of."

She thought I was smart? Since when?

"What about Ben? Or Bling!?" I kept naming other squad leaders who I figured had a better rapport with the headmaster and headmistress than I had, "How about the Cuckoos?"

As if reading my mind (which probably happened), Miss Frost negated all of my would-be alternatives, "You're an outright better candidate than Mister Hammil. You're that much better than Miss Washington as well. Aside from that, she's leaving. My girls cannot lead. Three different chains of command would be bad in the field, and if only one of them received the position, they may become less effective."

"Ego and jealousy between hive mind telepaths. Not a good thing," Mister Summers said, ignoring the glare he got from Miss Frost for insinuating such, "When it comes to practical experience, you have more of it than any other possible candidate."

Yeah, I knew that already. I was the shit. That was not what my hang-up was about, "But it's me," I said, as though that explained everything, "You hate me."

Mister Summers shrugged as though I hadn't been referring to him, "I don't hate you. Emma hates you," He said, passing the buck.

"I don't hate him, Scott!" Miss Frost snapped at her lover, only getting a sheepish grin from him. She composed herself well enough to address me directly, "I don't hate you, Mister Marcher. I... had my share of disagreements with your previous advisor. Also, you were very troublesome when you first arrived."

"I wouldn't use past-tense so hastily with that," Mister Summers muttered, before speaking up, "Does this mean you're turning down the position, Bellamy?"

Whoa, I never said that. I just didn't want to be propped up in a lame duck position. If they were legitimately backing me on this, I wasn't about to turn it down. That being said, I needed actual details, "What would you need me to do? How am I picking team members? Am I picking team members?"

Mister Summers caught on and started filling in the blanks, "I'll ask for volunteers. Anyone who agrees is in a pool. On every mission, I'll choose from the pool, depending on what the assignment requires, and you'll lead them in the field."

My mind must have spoken loud enough for Miss Frost to pick up on it when I heard 'field', "We won't be sending you to space, or into battle with groups like the ones who've attacked us. You'll be more along the lines of an extra set of hands," She explained neatly.

"This is a lot to think about." I admitted, crossing my arms and looking down at the floor in thought, "I was expecting, I don't know, whole squads being bumped up to take official missions separately."

"In a perfect world, that would happen. It still might eventually," Mister Summers said, "But the ones of you who show a particular aptitude for this need real experience. Over the last year, you've shown how much of a difference that makes. Drills and mock scenarios are well and good, but at some point-."

"-It's not the same as looking down the barrel of a gun," Emma said, an icy look in her blue eyes, "Of staring a real enemy in the face, knowing they mean to kill you."

Mister Summers sighed, as though he were feeling the gravity of what he was asking of me, and would ask of the volunteers of this pool of students, "We can't shield you from all of the things out to hurt you. Heaven knows we've seen that proven time and time again. But instead of throwing you into the fire, we want to ease you into it as best we can."

"-Them. Ease them into it," Miss Frost amended, sending a knowing look my way, "You don't really need training wheels on your bicycle, darling. We're well past that point with you."

As far as I was concerned, they'd said enough, "...Alright, I'm in," The moment I realized they weren't screwing with me and were serious, I was already sold.

"Oh, thank God," Mister Summers blurted out, pausing when he realized he'd said that out loud, "...We really didn't have anyone else equipped for the job."

Miss Frost chuckled softly, "Any other student with good enough leadership qualities lacked the personality and ability to enforce the authority that comes with the position. Any other student considered dominant enough to lead lacked the leadership qualities."

By now I was versed enough in translating the hodgepodge of adult-speak into blunter terms, "So, I'm good enough at leading to not march everyone off of a cliff, and I'm not a pussy, so if anyone has a problem with respecting my authoritah, I can deal with it without whining to a teacher."

Mister Summers didn't seem to have a problem with my profane summary of my qualities, "Yes, basically. Plus, you're familiar with most of the students we're considering. You've actually fought with most of them," Whether he meant alongside or against, I wasn't certain, "You would know how to utilize your assets in the field better than most."

That only left me with one important question at the moment, "Does this mean I'm an X-Man now?"

"Yes/No," Mister Summers and Miss Frost answered respectively. Mister Summers cleared his throat to cover the miscommunication and followed up, "Let's call it probational for now. You get new uniforms. And mission pay."

They had me at saying I was in charge, and sweetened the pot by saying I got money for doing it. I'd evolved from superhero-in-training to rookie superhero - just like a Pokémon.

...Just like a Pokémon.

That's the chapter, guys. All hell broke loose, and now we're left with the results. With kids dead, and others leaving, what could be next for our boy?

I've got no shortage of screwed up crap to dump him and the surrounding X-Men into. Just in case you weren't aware... Marvel has tons of content to work with. There's no end of people to meet and others to try and kill them.

That's all I've got for you right now, ladies and gentlemen. I hope you enjoyed.

Until the next time, Kenchi out.