Ride Into the Danger Zone (Part Two)

"Wolf, your kill-death ratio sucks. Step it up," I said as he and I split-screened a multiplayer match on a first-person shooter game, "You're an A.I., I figured you'd be better at this sort of thing. You're good at fighting games."

"Fighting games are a matter of reading patterns and action/reaction," Wolf's machine-generated voice rang out from in front of the big-screen TV where we were sitting in the common area, "There are too many random variables for me to perform as well in the situations provided by this game. Also, it is wholly unrealistic. Nothing I have learned about combat is useful in this... Call of Duty."

He was doing terribly. 3-and-14. We wound up losing that match. I blamed him. Pull your weight, Saberwolf.

"Yeah, it's more of an A.D.D. twitch shooter than anything involving strategy," I admitted, wincing at the sight of Wolf being butchered by some guy camping in a high-volume corner of the map, "Save that plan of action shit for when we play Battlefield or something, Sun Tzu."

It was a Saturday, which meant no classes and no training. There wasn't really anything I could think of doing, plus I would be damned if I was going back to Salem Center anytime soon after the last time I'd gone. So, lots of lazy time on the couch in front of the TV seemed like as good a thing as any to pass the time. And I figured if Wolf was sticking around for a while it would be better for people to get used to him sooner rather than later, hence the choice of using the common area.

The two of us watched lots of movies and played a lot of video games. We hooked up one of his ports to my PS4 out of the blue one day and surprisingly enough, he could register as a wireless controller. That made him three times cooler in my eyes. However, he could not connect to an X-Box.

...Goddamn Microsoft.

We usually played games in my room, but it was kind of sad to hang out with your robot friend all alone in the confines of your own personal space. So I figured, share the love and all that noise. We got a lot of looks from passing students, but for the hour we had been sitting down, no one had really brought up anything about it.

"I do not want to play this game any longer," Wolf told me after another poor performance on his part. We won, but his KDR was again reprehensible. I would have wanted to stop too if I were playing like him, "...If I had the choice, I would like to play the football game from yesterday."

I shrugged and started reaching for the case holding Madden when he stopped me.

"I said 'football', not 'American football'."

I let out a sigh and moved to grab for FIFA instead, "You were built in this country. Call it soccer like every other American," I said, switching out the disk to what he wanted, "You would pick the game I suck at."

"It is amusing to watch you fail."

"Oh really? 2-and-20."

The reminder of his lowest first-person shooter score today shut him up, for the time being at least. Long enough for the game to load up and for us to pick teams, "Cheap, metal fuck. Stop picking Real Madrid," I said.

"I will stop picking them when you find a way to beat them," He replied as he received the ball first, "You defend poorly."

There would have been more to say on my behalf if he hadn't immediately begun carving up my pathetic excuse at getting the ball from him, "Why does a robot wolf know how to play soccer?"

"Football."

"Soccer."

"Every other country in the world calls it football."

"As long as you're on American soil, it's soccer. Be a patriot, Wolf."

A sharp gasp preceded a loud call of, "Whoa!" Before a bright figure moved past the screen and fluttered in front of Wolf. Unfortunately, this was also in front of most of the screen, so I couldn't see. I was promptly scored on, by my opportunistic opponent.

I dropped my controller on the couch and set my head in my hands as the crowd roared and looked over at the person responsible for my 1 point deficit.

A girl was in front of Saberwolf, poking at him and seeing how responsive he was to her prodding. She had pink hair, pink eyes with black where the whites where supposed to be, and brightly colored fairy wings that flittered as she hovered just off of the ground right by us.

'Huh. Neat,' I thought for half a second before turning my attention back to the game, trying to take advantage of a distracted Wolf and attack while I had the chance. He wasn't so distracted that he couldn't defend and take the ball away, at which point I paused the game, "His name is Saberwolf," I said, getting her attention, "...My name is Bellamy."

A blush lit up the freckles on her cheeks, presumably out of embarrassment at having overlooked me for as long as she had, "Oops. Sorry. It's just, well, I didn't know students could have things like this. I don't even know anyone who does!" She had a sort of accent that glided over vowel sounds and gave a little roll to the r's.

I wasn't the only person who kept weird stuff around them. Miss Pryde had a dragon that we saw every now and again when it decided to tag along with her for team sessions. A dragon. How weird could a robot wolf be after that was thought of as normal?

"Well, he's not mine," I told her, "He's not really anyone's. He's just hanging out with me until he decides he's not anymore. Why he's not saying any of this himself, I don't know."

"Because I am waiting for you to unpause the game and face your inevitable defeat," Wolf said, his tail swishing around the air, just waiting for thing to continue.

The girl with us let out a gasp, her face absolutely lighting up after hearing him up-close, "That's so cool. What does he do?"

Sensing that saying, "kills things" wouldn't go over so well, I went a more thoughtful route.

"Uh..." I began eloquently, "He was designed for... defense?" I said/asked Wolf. He gave enough of a nod to indicate that what I'd said was fine, "He's just hanging here with me for a bit. I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

"Megan," She said, moving over to sit down between me and Wolf after I made some space, "I'm in your year."

None of my classes though. I'd have noticed someone with bright, pretty wings like that. I may have seen her before in passing, but there were so many kids with unique looks, wings included, it was hard to say for certain.

Which brought about the question of how and why she knew enough to know we were in the same year.

She laughed when I asked, getting my attention for a moment away from the game I'd unpaused, "You're the guy who shot Julian Keller in the face. Duh!" I must have looked confused, because she rolled her eyes and gave me a nudge, "It was on the main lawn, right when classes had let out. Everyone saw it."

That, or the rampage he almost went on afterwards. It put a smile on my face in hindsight. What did that say about me?

"So are you excited about the squad challenges?" Megan asked after a little while of watching Wolf smack me up at FIFA. I was hardly making a fight of it, "You're new, right? You've never done one."

I was aware of it, but didn't know how I felt. I wanted to do it because I was competitive, and loved the idea of winning at anything. On the other hand, as a squad, we were still undermanned, and I didn't have enough experience to be a real game-changer. I hated losing, but I didn't expect to win, so I already knew I was probably going to be a miserable, confrontational wretch, both during the challenges and after they were all over.

My enthusiasm was constantly in flux over the whole thing as my senses of optimism and realism battled it out in my mind. What can I say? I'm a complicated guy.

"So, do you know what these things are like?" I asked, trying to pick her brain a bit on what I could expect. I had talked to my team about it, but they had never stood much of a chance and thus didn't get a whole lot of field time before they were swept. Maybe Megan's squad had done better in previous challenges, "Is there fighting?"

"Well, sometimes. But it's never the point of whatever the challenge is," She told me. I split my attention between her and the game, but kept noticing her looking over at me, trying to get a good glimpse of my face, "Were you wearing contacts this whole time? I could have sworn your eyes were yellow."

I grunted in annoyance. They were yellow when my team simulation ended. I'd been sitting idle for too long, "What, are they green now?"

"-Ish."

"It's not a big deal. I passively absorb light," I said, turning her way to give her a better look, "My eye color is kind of the easy way for me to keep track of how much I have. Green means more power than yellow," The clock mercifully bled out, giving Wolf the 5-0 win. If an expressionless robot face could look smug..., "Alright, I'm going to go find something to get into, unless you want to play," I offered, holding the controller out to Megan.

Megan regarded the device for a second before scrunching up her nose, "No idea how to play. I'd do worse than you."

"That would be quite the accomplishment," Wolf chimed in, the first thing he'd said in minutes. He got a middle finger gestured at him from me out of Megan's view. You know, because 'gentleman', and all that. He ignored me entirely.

I may have turned an A.I. built for combat into a video game junkie. Absolutely outstanding.

Getting up from my seat, I grabbed the bucket hat in my lap. I had taken to wearing headwear with brims whenever I went outside, especially on sunny days, because catching tasty energy buzzes from Mother Nature got old. I got enough passively without bathing in sweet, delicious light.

Saberwolf looked torn between coming with me and continuing to play video games on his own. I waved him off and took the conflict out of his decision, "Take your time. I don't think anyone would be willing to steal my PS4 while a big metal wolf is sitting here playing it."

His head turned right back to the screen. I was no longer important to his world. Shed a tear for me, "I will continue to play. I will return the Playstation 4 and accessories to your room when I am finished, or upon your request," I gave a sweeping gesture to the TV, motioning for him to play on and was then on my way.

Hey, if that was what he wanted to do, so be it. He was a big boy... dog... robot-thing. He could make his own decisions without me. At least he had something he liked to do.

As for me, I was quickly finding out that boarding schools tended to be very boring.

Most of the time, there were teams or clubs at schools to keep kids out of trouble even private schools where the kids lived. The closest thing we had were the X-Men Training Squads, and we couldn't do that all of the time after we got out of classes. That left a lot of time just hanging in the air. Forget the fight for our rights, a lot of us were just trying to fight the still life.

It was amazing that more students didn't get into more catastrophically troublesome situations than they did. There wasn't really a whole lot else to fill their time.

I started walking around the campus proper, only to find that Megan had followed me outside, "What's up?" I asked, wondering what she wanted.

Megan kept the pace of my gait while she flew in the air next to me, "You look bored too," An astute observation, "I think I'll go find some of my friends. You doing anything?"

I was about to open my mouth and say 'go find Mister Logan to see if he'd let me pick a fight', but when I played it out in my head, it didn't exactly sound like the kind of thing that would draw people to you. Megan didn't seem like she'd think the idea of someone who enjoyed a blood-and-guts throwdown with the scariest staff member at the Institute.

In the end, I did agree to go with her to meet her friends. Hopefully, I wouldn't end up making them hate my guts the way I had with the Hellions, presumably, mind you, as I hadn't really interacted with them since the first time. Then again, with me and the amazing first impressions I tended to leave on people, there was a 50-50 chance of things going sideways.

"What do kids do for fun around here?" I asked, as Megan continued to lead me along to wherever she planned on searching for her friends. I barely knew what kids did, period. Back home, I buried myself in movies, TV, and video games. Now… well, I was kind of living it, what with the superpowers and all.

It kind of made a lot of that seem boring when you could do most of it or find someone who had done most of it for themselves.

She wound up leading me to the basketball courts where a bunch of pickup games were going on. Instead of any of the kids playing, she took me over to some kids sitting on the bleachers, watching.

There was a werewolf-looking kid. He didn't seem particularly scary though, mostly because he was smaller than me. Nicholas Gleason, or Wolf Cub. Nicky was a good guy. More timid than you'd expect, but then again his mutation manifested when he was still really young. I could only imagine how much that sucked.

There was also another guy with a flaming head. He looked like the son of the Human Torch. It was awesome. Ben Hamill, aka Match. He was tippy-top dog on his team, the undisputed leader. He was definitely good at his job, but he had kind of a short fuse. (Ha!)

That was the end of the kids with extraordinary looks.

There was a guy with pretty boy dark hair and big headphones on that I could still hear his music through as we got closer. Mark Sheppard, codename DJ. His powers were weird, but cool. They changed depending on what kind of music he listened to.

And the last member of Megan's team present that day was Hope Abbott, codename Trance. She had brown hair that went down to her neck, and kept it out of her face with a pair of barrettes. Hope was easy to get along with, but she was a bit of a scaredy cat, which I could understand, because her power involved astral projection and left her body a sitting duck.

They had another teammate, but she wasn't there when I met the others. She wasn't really a people person.

"Hey, guys!" Megan said, flying over to her friends, "Sorry I took so long. I saw something interesting in the dorms, got my attention."

Hope looked at Megan, then at me, "Does this something have a name?" She asked with a grin.

"This something is called Bellamy," I replied, playing along, "Always nice to meet people who don't want to use me for practice with their powers."

"He has a robot dog!" Megan blurted out, before looking embarrassed, "...Sorry. I thought he was cool and didn't know if you were gonna say it."

Ben raised a flaming eyebrow, "That thing is yours?" Apparently he'd seen Saberwolf walking around campus while out of my presence.

"He's not mine, and he's a wolf-A.I.," I clarified, damn near on autopilot, "I did bring him here though, so he's sticking around for a little while. Yep. He owes me a favor after I got him out of trouble."

I learned a nice little method of bonding with others, explaining some of the circumstances surrounding the new and interesting things around campus. Being in the know was good, especially when you were directly involved with cool shit.

I gave them the highlights of my escapades, including how I met Wolf (leaving out what he was supposed to have been used for). I didn't talk about the experiments, because I was still getting over that in my mind. I also may have embellished my role in bringing about the defeat of Donald Pierce, but come on. No one else was there, and I didn't feel like dredging up the play-by-play memories of how he slapped me around more than I gave it to him.

What I told them wasn't entirely untrue. I wanted them to like me, so yes, I churched up my role in events. Just a bit, though.

"-And then I blacked out," I said, finishing my story with a shrug, "I guess the X-Men dragged me back to school after that. I think they got the rest of the Reavers. Don't know if they found what was left of Pierce."

Huh… he might have still been alive, even though Saberwolf cut him in half. He sure wasn't screaming at us like a guy who was about to die.

…It was probably best not to think about that right at that moment.

"So what did it feel like?" Ben said, getting my attention. It shouldn't have been that hard, seeing as how he was covered in flames all the time.

"Huh?" What did getting hit by Pierce feel like? I could find some rebar and smack him in the head with it, let him find out that way, "He was a cyborg, man. It was like fighting a person made of metal."

The flames on his head intensified for a bit before he tried again, "No. A battle. A real battle," There was a little more bite to his tone this time. See? Temper, "Our advisor tells us all the Danger Room sims in the world aren't a substitute for the real thing. So? You had one. What do you say?"

I had two actually, though the first one consisted entirely of me running away more than actually fighting. Even so, I knew what I wanted to say. My thoughts quite often drifted back to those two real times that I had almost died. I was still very new to the concept of fighting for my life.

"Well... it's faster," I started to say, looking down at my hand and loading up some light energy behind my palm as quickly as I could. It was a warm, comfortable feeling. Knowing that I had power always calmed me down when I started to panic, "At least it feels like it. Whatever adrenaline you have working in the Danger Room, it's nothing like it is for real. We're told to always treat it like a real fight in there, even though we've already been told that nothing in there will kill us. Your body knows the difference out there."

"Is it harder or easier?" Hope asked.

"It's different," It was the best way I could explain it, "The Danger Room is smarter. It knows what it's doing more than real enemies do, but real enemies are harder to predict. You never know when they'll do something really panicky or really stupid-dangerous. Does that make sense?"

"Like what?"

"Like shoot a rocket-propelled grenade at a fully loaded carnival ride," I told them with a wry smile. The way they all froze, it didn't come off as a joke. Maybe it was just funny to me? Maybe it shouldn't have been funny to me? "I stopped it before it could hurt anybody... I think," I added after the fact.

That took the edge off, slightly. Maybe.

Things could have went better for my first time meeting the Paragons. Then again, they could have went worse. Still, I really am not good at making first impressions.