17 Chapter 16

Jean POV

Professor Beast narrated the fight between the Anomaly and Night Kat over the comms as we approached the building like a sports commentator.

"… he just summoned a gun and tried to shoot Night Kat in the face! Luckily, he somehow raised his forearm in time to receive the shot. Oh wow, Night Cat is attacking him with projectiles, and he seems…he might not make it…Oh, scratch that. He just summoned the strangest longsword I've ever seen, and he seems to be fairly skilled at using it too. Night Kat might be in trouble…we need to change strategies. Team A, go to the Arena and stop him. Team B will handle the viewing room. The professor is on standby to help both teams if things go too far."

Scott and I approached the viewing room with him in the lead as always. Right as we were at the bottom of the stairs, Profesor Beast screamed into our comms.

"The professor! He's down. The anomaly did something to him."

We both froze.

"What!" I panicked.

How was that even possible? Professor was the strongest Psychic on earth, or at least that was what I'd been led to believe.

Was the Anomaly some kind of sword-wielding psychic?

"Is he okay?" Scott asked, visibly shaken, but his voice was still measured, sticking to his training under pressure.

There was a bout of silence as we waited with bated breath.

"He will be," came the response.

"He has to be more powerful than we think if he can knock the professor out like that. He may be a psychic." I said.

"Unlikely," Beast responded. "The professor would've known upon the first scan. He's something different entirely. It's up to Storm and Wolverine now. Both of you will have to deal with Toad and his partner. Do you think you can handle that?"

My heart skipped a beat.

"Partner?"

The professor never said anything about a second mutant.

"Professor X probably wanted to test how we'd perform going into a fight with next to no intel," Scott put together.

"He and I thought you were ready for more challenging combat scenarios. Your missions up until now have gone exactly as planned," Beast confirmed Scott's hypothesis.

"Do we know who's inside?" I asked.

"The professor didn't tell even me," Beast said, "but he did confirm that it was no one too dangerous, but they're definitely a member of the brotherhood. So, do you think you can handle it? Or would you prefer I come down and give you a hand?

My knee-jerk reaction would've been no, but the test was vital, even if the Professor wasn't here. Still, I couldn't help but worry for Scott's safety.

Before I could give my answer, Scott decided for the both of us.

"We got this doc," Scott announced, and I looked at him, puzzled.

"I know we're worried, but it's just like the professor said, we've been preparing to fight schmucks like these for years. Follow my lead."

In any other situation, I'd have found his confidence reassuring, irresistible even, but he'd walked all over me without realizing it.

There was no putting the genie back in the bottle now, so I marched up the stairs behind him. 

He counted down from three, and the door flew open with a telekinetic shove from me.

Toad seemed to be in a heated argument with a mutant I instantly recognized.

QuickSilver? Fuck.

The entire room exploded into motion.

I raised a telekinetic block in front of Toad and Pietro Maximoff, drawing on the tactics I'd drilled for dealing with a speedster like him.

Predictably, he pitched over, flipping wildly in the air before slamming into the wall beside me. Toad caught a concussive energy beam to the chest that surprisingly didn't put him out of commission. He vaulted onto the walls and tried to escape through the broken window in the viewing room, but I held him mid-air as Scott swung his beam around and hit with a second, more potent shot. 

He dropped to the ground.

Every inch of me vibrated. This was nothing like the training room. It was so much more intense. Yet, it'd gone unexpectedly well.

Scott had the same look of panic on his face, but it slowly gave room for confidence. "Well, that went better than—"

The next instant, Scott was flipping in the air, and Toad was gone.

Shit!

Quick Silver woke up. I stretched my hand, catching Scott in a telekinetic grip.

"Jesus," he rubbed his chin. "You can't take your eyes off them for a single second, can you?"

"Sorry about that," I mumbled. "I should've put him to sleep…"

"Nah… it's fine Jean," he said, standing up. "Let's see this so-called Anomaly for ourselves."

The entire time we floated down, I couldn't help but feel guilty for how easily they'd managed to escape. I was so mad at Scott that I put our relationship before the mission. 

Scott had pissed me off, but I couldn't lose focus like that again, or the consequences would be dire.

Dante/Axel POV

"Oh, now you want to talk?" Scott scoffed. "After your pals have run off, and you're all alone."

I eyed the teenager as he touched down with Jean, a vein throbbing on my forehead.

Teen angst. I didn't miss that in the slightest.

"Scott," Storm chided. "He's willing to talk. The very least we can do is hear him out."

"Even after what he did to the professor?"

I raised my hands in defense. "Hey, he was the one wriggling his way inside my head. If you knew anything about me, you know that was a no-go territory. I was merely defending myself."

"And what about the people you killed, bub?" Wolverine demanded in his intense grizzly voice. I put two and two together when I saw the comms on their ear. They probably had a hacker on their team looking into me. It was likely Professor Hank.

"Self-defense," I said, easily. "I was in town looking in on an old friend when a green fuck-face showed up and tried to drag me into some underground fight club to pay off my friend's debt. Naturally, I refused, and his men attacked us after he left. Wanted my shiny pistols. Said they were too good for me.

I wasn't about to let him have them, so a fight broke out. I defended myself, tried to leave town, and that asshole of a speedster wrecked my car and damn near killed me! Next thing I know, I'm facing a guy with a fucking tail and claws, and your asses storm in here just as I was about to negotiate my freedom!" I finished with an exasperated gasp and a shake of my head. 

The X-Men stared at me with a mix of shock and confusion.

"Did the audience just sit through my speech?" I wondered out loud, finally remembering that an audience had been watching us this entire time.

"I'd like to think that I'm an entertainer, but I'd rather not expose myself any more than I already have."

"They were never here to begin with," Storm said. "It's far too dangerous to have a live audience for a mutant fight club. All sorts of people can get in."

"Oh God," I let out a sigh that'd been holding back. My new papers were still secure.

"I get it," I nodded, sighing in relief. Mutant hate groups, the military, and all manner of bad people could invade the audience and launch an attack. "So, the entire crowd was a smokescreen. And the stream?"

"Diverted by someone on our team. Toad never went live."

 (A/N: Read 5 chapters ahead on my Pat.reon at Pat.reon.com/Artandcreativewriting )