X-men:Bast Ch.2

The group stood in the middle of a massive courtyard, a square clearing at least a hundred yards in dimension. They stood near one end with the courtyard stretching before them. The ground was covered in small, smooth stones neatly arranged about. Around them the walls of a great Japanese temple rising up around them. A massive pagoda stretched upward on the far side of the courtyard, fresh coats of red and black upon its surface. Several bamboo trees were scattered about the square for aesthetic value.

Grouped at the foot of the Pagoda were their opponents, a mass of men clad in bamboo samurai armor. The men glowered at them, and slowly slid their katanas from their sheaths with an unsettling hiss. There were far too many to count, easily over a hundred strong.

“Ah, the showdown at Wing-Po,” Logan smirked. “Good choice, Petey.”

“Zis is…a bit advanced for Kia, ja?” Nightcrawler ventured.

“She’ll be fine,” Psylocke nodded. “There’s plenty of us here to help and protect her. It’s not like she can really get hurt here anyway. We’ve got the safeties on.”

“Sissies,” Wolverine grumbled.

“I’m not that breakable,” Kia smirked. “I may not be as good at these things as you guys are, but I’ll be okay.

The mass of warriors began to advance, slow and sure and steady. The Mutants came together. Betsy reached behind her shoulder and slid her Katana free from its sheath. Kurt produced a blade of his own, this one a curved saber that he kept at his hip.

Kia jumped as lengths of steel exploded from Logan’s hands, arching outward. Six gleaming, razor sharp claws protruded from the back of his fists, just above his knuckles. The long gleaming blades were fearsome to behold. Originally lengths of bone from his Mutation, they later became coated in Adamantium, like all the rest of his bones.

“Do yer thing, Petey” Logan murmured, his focus entirely upon the advancing host of Samurai.

Peter nodded, reaching down to lift Logan effortlessly. He pulled back, Logan still in his arms, then hurled his team mate right into the ranks of the enemy. Logan roared loudly as he exploded forward, his clawed hands extended to lead the charge.

Logan slammed into one of the swordsman, hitting him square and with such force it sent the man hurtling into the samurai behind him. Logan grinned with satisfaction as his claws sunk through the man who had broken his momentum, the pointed lengths of metal exploding out the warrior’s back, and into the chest of his comrade. Wolverine was up before the Samurai gathering around him could fully react. He yanked his claws free and lashing out, gouging the man on his left across the face and then spinning and kicking solidly into an attacker on his right. He roared again and lunged deeper into their ranks, claws slashing and stabbing rapidly, cutting those around him down. A Katana slashed across his left forearm. If not for the safeties, it would have cut deep enough to clang off his unbreakable bone. He slashed with the claws of his right hand, shattering the Katana and then plunging the claws into his attacker’s chest. He ripped his claws out the side of the man’s body and moved on to his next victim, the thick welt on his arm healed before he’d even sliced through the offending Katana.

The rest of the team burst into action. Colossus charged forward, his enormous, steel-hard body barreling into the mass of foes and hurling them out of his way. Armored men flew in every direction as he backhanded and shoulder rammed them aside. Their blades chipped and cracked upon contact with his impervious shell. Nightcrawler was teleporting in and out of the enemy ranks, striking men from unseen angles, his spectacular agility and speed combining with his teleportation ability to keep him out of their enemy’s reach while remaining devastatingly effective. The air was soon filled with the scent of brimstone and a lingering tint of smoke.

Psylocke moved with the grace and skill of a honed warrior. She weaved and dashed from Samurai to Samurai. While the blade in her left hand flashed and slipped past the guard of her enemies, her right hand glowed a brilliant pink. She plunged the powerful and slender psi-dagger deep into the bellies and sides of the Samurai striking and slashing at her. While Psylocke could use her psi-dagger to stun or incapacitate others, Betsy was allowing her full power to flow into the pink energy blade, causing each stab and slash to be fatally powerful.

She rolled away from the slash of one attacker, lashing her Katana upward through his chest and skipping to her feet in the same motion. Her right hand flashed forward, plunging her psi-knife quickly into a second Samurai, once, twice. She spun and blocked a slash from a third opponent with her Katana, using the opening to kick the man in the chest and sending him sprawling backward. Her telepathy felt the stirrings of consciousness just a foot behind her. She reversed her grip on her Katana and stabbed backward with it, sliding it into the belly of the Samurai coming behind her even as she slashed an attacker advancing on her front with her Psi-dagger, slicing his throat. He fell to the ground, as dead as if a real blade had opened his jugular.

Kia was not as skilled at direct combat as her more experienced team mates, so she attempted to keep out of the fighting. She was by no means, however, incapable of making her presence felt. She reached out with her power, concentrating fiercely and putting the fullness of her Mutant gifts to work. The first man she focused upon suddenly paused where he stood, his face blanching and taking on a sickish look, allowing Betsy to open his belly with her Katana. The next was lunging toward Peter, blade raised to strike, and suddenly stumbled, crying out at the pain flaring through his leg. His muscles suddenly exploded with agony. His knee locked and refused to respond to his minds demand. A third Samurai clutched at his chest, his face twisted in pain, but his lungs refused to draw breath to scream with. The warrior fell to Wolverine’s slashing claws a moment later. Everywhere Kia’s will touched, the enemy faltered, distracted or disabled by unseen afflictions.

“Can’t we make this any harder?” Logan roared over the sounds of battle.

“Computer, increase to level seven, team settings,” Psylocke called out.

Things suddenly got much more deadly. The warriors began to glow a shifting blackish green color and their Katanas’ seemed to be pulsing with the color. The next blow that crashed against the side of Colossus’s face clanged loudly and made him stumble back. A few moments later Wolverine gave a loud cry and came flying through the air, smacking down hard on the ground and rolling to a halt near Kia’s feet.

“Are you okay?” Kia asked as she quickly helped him to his feet. A large gash marred Logan’s face. The safety settings on this level were, obviously, lower.

“Keep outta reach, kid,” Logan growled. “I think Bets’ went a bit overboard.” As he spoke, the gash on his face healed before Kia’s eyes.

“What should I do? My powers aren’t strong enough to bring one down by myself. I just disable them.”

Logan glanced down at her and nodded. “Work on the ones around Bets’,” he instructed, then leapt back into the violent fray. She watched as he ducked under the next devastating slash and plunged his claws repeatedly into the attacker before running up to the next one and tackling the armored man, slashing frantically as they both struggled to the ground.

For the next several moments Kia reached out with her powers, pushing them as far as she could as she used everything she had been taught and every useful application she could think of. She disabled the muscles of several warriors’ sword arms, making them drop their blades uselessly to the ground as Betsy danced in and out between them with incredible agility and poise, slashing with Katana and Psi-dagger both, cutting away her enemies in a deadly dance of steel and power. Kia broke down one Samurai’s strength so that when he slashed at Betsy, she was able to block the sword without being flattened by the power of it. At one point Kia even altered the cells in one man’s legs, making them heavier and denser so that he was unable to lift his suddenly weighty feet.

She was so distracted with hampering and impeding Psylocke’s opponents that she almost failed to notice several Samurai coming at her until it was almost too later. She fought down panic as she turned her power on herself. She amplified her body’s natural abilities, making her muscles denser and stronger, her senses sharper and her mind more alert. Adrenaline suddenly pumped through her body in such quantity that it bordered on being harmful, giving even more power to her muscles and heightening her reflexes.

A quick roll saved her as the first Samurai slashed downward at where she had just stood. She sprang up and lunged at him. Her muscles rippled with augmented power as she drove the heel of her palm into the man’s throat, the easiest and most effective strike she knew. The man gurgled and sank to the ground, his airways crushed.

Kia considered grabbing up the Katana the attacker had dropped, but before she could she was forced to skip away from her next attacker. She wrapped her power around him and he doubled over in agony. Kia took the opportunity to burst forward and drive her knee into the man’s vulnerable face. Another Samurai slashed at her and she skipped to the side, faster than he could match. She gripped his extended arms and pulled forward, pulling downward as she swept his legs. His existing momentum and the explosion of strength pumping through her allowed her to topple the man to the floor. She kept her grip on his arms as he rolled gracelessly to the ground. She slipped her hands down to his wrist and with a skilled tug and twist, popped one of his wrists out of place. As the man gave a muffled scream, Kia yanked his Katana from his loosened grip and plunged it into his chest cavity.

Before the next three attackers could reach her, a sharp ‘bamf!’ sounded and Kurt appeared behind the closest warrior. He leapt up and kicked the warrior in the back of the head, and before the next instant was over he was behind the second one, striking and knocking him out, and then doing the same to the third.

“Careful, Kia! Ve vouldn’t vant you to get bruised, ja?” Kurt grinned, then teleported out into the fray again. Logan and Peter had made their way to each other and were currently helping one another to tear into their enemies. Kurt went in and out of the battle for several moments before popping up near Betsy and centering his efforts toward thinning out the attackers around her. Kia did what she could to assist, helping to set up easy targets for Psylocke and Nightcrawler and keeping their attackers disabled or distracted from attacking them in force. Still, she paid closer attention to those enemies closest to her and held her newly acquired blade at the ready.

The enemy seemed truly endless, and in fact, were being re-generated and bolstered by the Danger Room, but at last the Samurai’s numbers dwindled and thinned, and the last ancient warrior collapsed to the bloodied ground as Logan’s claws pulled free of his throat.

“Please…tell me…we don’t have to deal with…this kind of thing…for real,” Kia panted as the courtyard faded to be replaced by the plain walls of the Danger Room. She felt drained, physically exhausted from using her powers more heavily than she ever had.

“Sometimes,” Peter replied. “But we usually have greater numbers, and it is rare we must deal with enemies who re-appear after you defeat them.”

“Rare?” Kia arched a brow. “Wait, never mind. I’ll find out some day. I guess.”

“You did good though,” Betsy smiled. “I would’ve been dead quite a few times if you hadn’t been messing with them.”

Kia took a deep breath and stood up straighter, smiling softly. “I just wish I could have been more directly involved.

“One day,” Kurt told her encouragingly. “First you must develop your powers. Ve all had to do zese tings. Zey take time.”

“Listen to ‘em,” Logan nodded. His body was criss-crossed with bruises and cuts, but they were rapidly fading and mending as his team mates watched. “Takes years to get where we’re at. Ya been here what, a few months? Eight at the most, ya sure weren’t here when I left. For that little time, yer doin’ good. Ya trained before somewhere, didn’t ya?”

“Yeah,” Kia nodded slowly. “I learned a long time ago Mutants need to know how to defend themselves. I’ve spent a few years in a few different Dojo’s, off and on.”

“Kia’s picking up her training here well too,” Betsy nodded. “Soaks things up like a sponge.”

“Thanks,” Kia smiled shyly. “I try.”

“I’m hungry,” Logan nodded to his friends. “Who wants grub?”

“I could go for some,” Betsy smiled.

“Ah, it is good to have you back, Logan,” Kurt nodded. “Ze place…it was not ze same vithout you.”

***

Charles sat at his desk, glancing over some lesson plans and other paperwork. His office was spacious and comfortable, an office, study, and den all wrapped into one room. A hearth was set in the wall off to the side and several book cases were spread about. His desk was large and fine, made of a solid oak with a lacquer finish. A computer, a handful of books, and many papers were stacked on the desk, neat, organized and orderly. A large window opened over the well kept lawns and gardens, providing one of the most peaceful and calming views in all the Manor.

In an hour and a half he would be giving a lecture on the nature of Human-Mutant relations throughout history and where he and others like him hoped they would go in the future. It was one of his favorite lectures, one that he gave to all first year students when business with the team and the school were relaxed enough to give him the opportunity.

He felt the stirrings of Logan’s mind just outside his door and looked up as his long time friend walked in. Logan plopped into the chair in front of Charles desk, a lit cigar between his lips, and kicked his feet up onto the edge of Charles large oak desk.

“Pete said ya wanted to see me, Chuck.”

“Yes, well,” Charles said slowly. “It’s good to see you’re well, Logan. Now, please put that out and put your feet on the floor, where they belong.”