X-men:Bast Ch.3

Legal issues: Kia Jaeger(codename Bast) is an original character and belongs to me. All other characters and core X-men concepts are copyright Marvel, Stan Lee, and other creators. I do not own any of them, nor do I profit from them in any way.

Author Note: This story is based upon the story and setup in the comics and takes place at no particular point in them, but is instead treated as it’s own events separate from many of the large happenings in the comics. Also, I am not fully aware of every significant event that has happened in the X-men’s long history, so the information presented in this story and the information in the comics may not always 100% add up. Some characters who might even be dead as of the current X-men issues may be alive in this story.
***
Chapter 3

Storm set two plates piled high with salad and heavily loaded with tomatoes. Kia sat down across from her and took her plate from Ororo. It was Wednesday, the day after Kia’s intense Danger Room session with Betsy and the others, and the two teachers were lunching together between classes. While their students were eating in the massive cafeteria on the ground floor, they shared their meal in this small break room adjacent to the main kitchen.

Kia lightly sprinkled Italian dressing on her salad and passed the bottle to her friend. “So,” she spoke up, “How was the date last night?”

Storm smiled, her eyes slightly distant as she recounted pleasant memories. “Very nice. Hank took me to the new Korean restaurant just outside the city limits. He even made sure they had vegetarian meals. We had a wonderful night.”

“Sounds like a good time,” Kia smiled. “Did you do anything else, or just dinner?”

“After we finished eating we walked to a nearby park,” Storm explained. “He tried to hire a carriage ride, but it didn’t happen.”

“No one would stop for you, huh?” Kia asked dryly.

“For the most part. One man finally did, but by then the idea was kind of ruined, and the horses were a bit nervous around Hank. So we gave up.”

“That’s too bad,” Kia sighed. “I’m sorry you guys had to deal with that on what was otherwise a nice date.”

“It’s okay,” Storm shrugged after she finished chewing her mouthful. “It happens, we’re both certainly used to such things. Besides, it’s the thought that counts.”

Kia grinned mischievously and leaned forward. “I don’t suppose Hank put any moves on you, huh?” she asked in a conspiring voice.

Both women giggled lightly. “Unfortunately not,” Ororo sighed. “Even after dating for than five months, I think he just doesn’t have the confidence to make the first move. Something like that is a bit too bold for him.”

Kia nodded and smiled wryly. “So nothing, huh?”

“He walked me to my room and kissed me on the cheek once we got home.”

“Oh, Hank’s a risqué one, isn’t he?” Kia laughed.

Storm shook her head and gave a rueful smile. “I think at this rate I may have to take matters into my own hands.”

“Hank is just trying to be a sincere gentleman, I’m sure,” Kia replied. “He’s just a bit too gentlemanly, in this case.”

“Yes, I know,” Ororo nodded. “And Hanks ability to be a gentleman and be considerate and kind is one of the things I find attractive about him in the first place. But even still…I think it is about time we move our relationship into a deeper level. And sometimes I can be rather impatient.”

Kia giggled softly and smiled at her friend. “Do you already have plans?”

“Not really,” Storm replied. “But I’ll figure something out. If he doesn’t do some moving soon, I’ll have to give him some gentle but obvious suggestions, I think.”

“Good luck,” Kia said. “Hank’s a great guy. I’m sure he’ll come around. Just as soon as he gets the idea through that thick blue skull of his.”

Storm smiled warmly and carried her empty bowl to the room’s mini sink. “I think it’s more a matter of his head being so jammed with scientific formulas and genetic structuring that it takes awhile for him to work anything else in.”

Kia laughed and brought her own bowl to the sink. She helped Storm quickly do the dishes.

“So how goes your training, my friend?” Storm asked when they finished.

“Good,” Kia smiled. “The Professor is working with me a lot on getting a better feel for my powers and finding out what I’m capable, and also teaching me how to apply my powers in a combat situation. Betsy and Rogue are helping me out a whole lot in learning different fighting techniques and martial skills, too.”

Storm nodded and smiled. “That’s good. I think Psylocke could help you learn a lot. She knows more about hand to hand combat than almost anyone else here. I’d venture to say the only person who knows more is Logan.”

“Logan?” Kia’s brows arched in surprise. “He knows martial arts?”

“Indeed,” Storm smiled. “He knows more forms of martial arts and fighting than any of us, probably more than even he realizes. You seem surprised.”

Kia shrugged. “I guess I am. I mean, he was at a Danger Room session I went to yesterday and…well, he didn’t really seem the martial-arts type. He was a great fighter, yeah, but he was more like…like a brute, I guess, than a martial artist. Well no, not a brute. An animal.”

“Ah,” Ororo nodded. “Yes, Logan is like that sometimes. It’s a bit strange. He tends to fight in different ways depending on his mood and what kind of situation he is faced with. Sometimes he fights with more precision and technical expertise than anyone I have ever seen…and sometimes he fights as if he were a possessed demon. 

“Logan has often been called a berserker,” Ororo explained. “When he is calm and in control, he is very precise and calls on his extensive training in combat and martial arts…but when he becomes emotional or enraged, he fights purely on instinct and aggression.”

“Isn’t that kind of dangerous?” Kia asked. “He seemed…I don’t know…almost reckless.”

“He can afford to be on occasion,” Storm smiled. “Part of his mutant abilities is a vastly accelerated healing factor…his body mends itself of almost any damage, often almost instantaneously. Logan can and often does absorb an amount of punishment that would normally kill someone, and shrugs it off as if it were nothing.”

“Yeah, I noticed that,” Kia nodded. “See, now why can’t I have that ability? Then I wouldn’t ever have to worry about hurting myself with all the tripping and stumbling I always do.”

“You do have a healing power, to a degree,” Ororo pointed out.

“I guess,” Kia shrugged. “But it’s not the same. Sure, I can heal myself by altering my cells…but it takes time and an effort. Automatic healing seems a lot more useful.”

Storm smiled sagely and nodded. “We all have our gifts. The more you explore your gift, the more you’ll realize it’s the right one for you.”

After lunch ended Kia headed back to her classroom and sank into her desk with a sigh. She felt slightly tired from all the training she had been doing lately, but it was an invigorating change. Kia had often been physically active, and considered herself to be in good shape. Though it had been about two years since the last time she had been in a dojo of any kind, she had maintained a reasonable amount of activity and athleticism. She had never, however, been through such rigorous and extreme demands as the X-men training regiment demanded. The sharp increase of activity her body had been subjected to in the last several months had been difficult at first, still was. Still…where she had always had a relatively slim and flat stomach, now she had the hint of femininely defined abs and a tight, firm abdomen with lean but solid muscle beneath. Her calves were tight and roundly muscled, her thighs firm and sculpted more than they’d been even at the peak of her old athleticism. She was still not in the kind of tight and toned physical condition that Rogue or Betsy were, but her fitness was obvious at a glance, and Kia was proud of the kind of progress she had been making lately.

With almost a half-hour left to kill, Kia went through a short grading session and made a pretty good dent in the enormous stack of papers and assignments before students started to filter in for the next class. She lectured briefly on their assigned reading, then let the class break into groups to converse about the nature of what they had read and to answer several semi-advanced questions related to the reading. She went from group to group, helping them to examine the text on a deeper level if they had problems seeing what was there, and even engaging in a rather enjoyable conversation with one group who seemed to be picking up the important themes better than the others. All in all, the class went well, as did the next and final class of the day.

After putting the classroom in order and locking the room till tomorrow morning, Kia went to her room and changed out of her tidy teaching clothes and into one of her favorite jeans, a pair that hugged tightly to the roundness of her hips and lush buttocks. She pulled on a light purple short sleeved V-neck top that showed off a respectable but tantalizing portion of her generous cleavage. 

Kia left her room and wandered into the rec room that was most often frequented by the team. It was a large, spacious room with wooden floors and light blue walls. Wall hangings were evenly spaced around the room, and several windows let the sunlight warm the room on clear and pleasant days. A number of entertainment pursuits set up around the room. A large flat-screen TV was hung on one wall with a wide couch set in front of it flanked on one side by a loveseat and the other by two deep cushioned recliners. On the other side of the room were games of various sorts, including a pool table, air hockey, a pinball machine, and two old-fashioned arcade machines. A mini fridge with snacks and beverages was settled in one corner. The room wasn’t as heavily packed with games and entertainment devices as the several game rooms around the Manor, but it also wasn’t frequented by the students and teenagers like the game rooms were.

Several of the X-men were gathered there already. Rogue and Kurt were standing in one of the corners at opposite ends of the air hockey table. Rogue had a dark scowl on her face as Kurt scored another goal in what the score monitor showed was a rather impressive total. Kurt grinned wider as Rogue fished the puck out and dropped it back on the table. Kurt was wielding his bumper with his tail.

Betsy and Jean were sitting on the couch, half watching a home makeover program but mostly making fun of the show and distractedly discussing current events.

Jean was one of Xavier’s first X-men, and his first actual pupil, taken on before the X-men had even been formed. She was a few inches shorter than Kia and slender, with long legs and striking flame red hair that tumbled down to her waist in a thick mane of curling locks. Her eyes were a luminous emerald green and her skin was smooth and clear. Her bustline, while not as generous as Kia or Betsy’s, was nonetheless impressive, especially on her otherwise small and slender frame.

Kia glanced away from the couch. She had avoided Jean almost the entire time she had been living at the Mansion. It sometimes created a tense atmosphere. It wasn’t really that she disliked Jean, but neither of them could really be comfortable around the other. Her open dislike and animosity toward Jean’s husband made things rather awkward.

Not wanting to step into a tense situation with Jean, Kia approached the air hockey table. “Wow. I never knew you were such an air hockey enthusiast, Kurt.”

“It ain’t fair!” Rogue protested in her thick southern drawl. 

Rogue was another of Kia’s close friends. She liked Rogue’s spirit, the fiery and enthusiastic approach she took toward everything, though the Southern Belle could be calm and collected when the situation called for it. She was just under Kia’s height at 5’8”, but had broader shoulders and a more powerful build. While certainly still feminine and womanly, Rogue was the most muscular and toned of all the female X-men, probably owing to her superhuman strength and the frequency of which she got directly involved in the more rigorous and physically demanding aspects of being an X-woman. Her hair was one of her most defining features, a rich chestnut brown that tumbled down to her shoulder blades in thick, almost shaggy locks. However, at her forehead hairline were thick locks of bright white hair, twisting through her hair in two wild streaks that stood out starkly. Her breasts were quite generous and amazingly perky and round, sitting high on her chest. Her hips were rounded softly and her buttocks were juicy. Her legs were one of her most impressive aspects, long and lean with firm, succulent thighs rippling just under the surface with the muscles of a true female athlete.