23 Ride Into the Danger Zone (Part One)

"That's the end of the simulation, guys."

Another day, another training session. Time in the Danger Room had to be rationed out to all of the student squads. All of us had to get some kind of practical experience fighting and doing missions, and the senior X-Men had to get their training in as well. Squads got two sessions of two hours each, every week.

We had to make them count. It was the closest thing to field experience we were supposed to get anytime soon.

They weren't sending kids out go fight anti-mutant terrorist cells and all of the other supervillains the X-Men tangled with every so often.

...Yet.

I watched the false jungle environment around us vanish, and felt the climate of the room change from wet and humid, to the original stagnant air of the Danger Room's default state.

It had been a good session, at least in my opinion. Nothing had gone catastrophically wrong. No one had gotten shot or cut to pieces by the gun-toting loonies in the sim. There hadn't even really been any specific hitches. All in all, it had been a good day.

I stood up straight and stretched my back out. The pops were extra satisfying, coming after a job well-done. What was also satisfying was commentary on just how awesome I had been. I could never get enough of that.

Hisako gave me a little shove in the middle of my stretch to get my attention, "Not bad, Sol," She said, actually saying something good about me to my face for once, "Your shots were on-point."

I grinned at the compliment. I'd been practicing a lot. I'd learned just how valuable precise aim could be from my little run-in with the Reavers. I wasn't a sure shot just yet, but I was getting good enough to the point that if someone told me to hit something, everyone who knew well enough would believe that it was going down.

Well, one nice thing said deserved another.

"Back at you," I told Hisako in return, "When you were charging through that village, I wish we weren't fighting holograms. I'm sure the looks on their faces when you armored up and barreled through everything would have been priceless."

Miss Pryde clapped as she entered the Danger Room, a big smile on her face as she walked over to us. Saberwolf trailed behind her, his tail idly swishing in the air as the hydraulics in his legs softly hissed, "Good work, everyone. It looks like everything is starting to come together. What did I tell you?"

"Shut up, focus, and stop getting into trouble," I said, getting a few chuckles and a roll of the eyes from our advisor.

Miss Pryde's rolled her eyes in my direction, but i know i saw a smirk. She had a good sense of humor for a teacher. At least when we weren't training or about to be killed.

"I never said that," She told me.

"Well not like that exactly," I said, shifting around in place, "But the message was still there."

"I've got a question," Eddie cut into the banter between me and our teacher, raising his hand before pointing to Saberwolf, "Why is that thing in here watching us fight?"

I looked over at Saberwolf and then back to my flying teammate, "Because he wants to be?" I offered as an explanation, "You just go right ahead and move him on out of here if it's such a big deal."

Eddie didn't seem eager to take that offer. None of Saberwolf's blades were out, but he knew about them. Why wouldn't I talk about the goddamn chainsaw in his back?

For the most part, Ruth and Miss Pryde were fine with him. He'd helped save Ruth, so he was just as cool with her as he was with me. He made sure we didn't get killed long enough for Miss Pryde to arrive with help, so she had a more wary wait-and-see approach.

She wasn't particularly nervous about the prospect of fighting him. She could phase through him and short him out.

Eddie and Hisako were another story though. Full disclosure when Saberwolf first started hanging around revealed that his purpose was based on the idea of Sentinels.

I had to tell my team what he was and where he came from, even if no other student in the school was smartened up to everything surrounding the episode with the Reavers, mostly because of how my friends responded.

I was specific when I said that he was not a Sentinel himself. But they were still kind of scared of him. Fair enough, as he was a walking weapon, but I would have thought that kids living in a school where they're taught to try and work for harmony would have been quicker to give Saberwolf a chance.

Then again, I had been sort of hard on him too until he'd saved my ass.

Also, I was a dog person. Even robot dogs. Go figure.

Saberwolf lowered his head and apologized... as 'killer robots' often did, "My apologies. I did not intend to disrupt your team's training program. I am merely… bored."

Which was entirely understandable. Freedom wasn't exactly useful if you didn't know what to do with it. And what exactly was he supposed to do to pass the time at the Institute?

He was an A.I., not a mutant, so he couldn't register as a student and go to classes. The only people he knew were on my team, and half of them didn't trust him. If he walked around campus by himself, he was met with confusion from the students and suspicion from the staff. That left me to hang out with him, for the time being anyway.

If you had told my 6-year-old self that in ten short years he'd be hanging out with a talking robot wolf, you would have risked making him pee his pants with excitement.

I walked over and gave him a few pats on the head. I idly figured it might have been demeaning halfway through, but he didn't move away, "I would have let you do the simulation with us, but it's not my call," I said, "I don't even know if you'd find that fun. Do you even know what you think is fun?"

"It is fine," Saberwolf sounded almost resigned at the current state of things, "I suppose a part of embracing one's own freedom is finding the things that they enjoy doing for oneself."

In the meantime, Eddie landed and went over to Ruth, who sat over near the edge of the Danger Room platform, kicking her legs aimlessly, "Hey, uh... can you do your weird telepath thing and dig up if that thing is just waiting to kill us all?"

Ruth turned back over her shoulder and frowned in his direction, considering his request, "She cannot, no. Yes, sorry. Bellamy says Saberwolf thinks like a human, gains data like a human, but his mind is still a machine, so she can't read it."

If I could hear him, I knew Wolf could too.

Alright, that was enough of the in-team dramatics. I didn't have the patience to stomach it that day. I needed some quality Bellamy time.