First Impressions (Part Four)

My vision slowly came back into focus, giving me a good view of the gym floor… with drops of red on it. The coppery taste of blood sat on my tongue. I ran my tongue over the fresh cut that had opened on the inside of my bottom lip and winced.

On one knee, I looked over and saw Mr. Logan stood a short ways away looking bored. Sorry if my pugilistic endeavors weren't enough to tickle your fancy, you psycho.

Mr. Logan, or Wolverine as he's otherwise known, was the main self-defense teacher. Yes, the guy who met me and got into a severe car accident because of my driving within five minutes of making my acquaintance was the person who was in charge of beating me to a pulp… or teaching me how to fight.

"Get back up, kid. Your round's not over yet," He demanded, gesturing to the clock that still had a little more than three minutes left on it. I had been failing epically for less than two to try and land as many good shots on him as I could.

I hate losing. I don't know if I've said this enough.

Eventually I got sick of it and decided, hey, I can take a few shots just as long as I get to land one good one. Just one, good enough for me to hear his jaw click or all of the air fly out of his gut. That was a mistake I wouldn't forget anytime soon.

Ever felt what it's like to get punched in the face by a guy with an adamantium-coated skeleton? Padded headgear only does so much to protect your head from something like that. He might as well have used a bat. Thank God I had a mouthpiece in.

I hopped back up to my feet to try and make a show that I wasn't actually hurt, "Don't knock my teeth out," I requested, carefully sliding back toward with my hands up and my chin tucked low.

He made a show of slipping my punches without even moving his feet before he popped me in the forehead with two solid jabs and got out of my way, "Move your head more. Just keeping your hands up won't help if you don't make yourself a harder target."

There were about two minutes left. I was going to get the most out of it, even if it only entailed me getting my ass kicked. I hate losing, even if it's against someone in something I have no chance it.

Every other day, students could attend self-defense classes. Strictly hand-to-hand. No powers. It was optional to take. Even if you weren't interested in it, everyone learned the basics and practiced with each other. For those of us who did have an interest, we were given more hands-on instruction.

We would actually fight the teacher. Oh, joy of joys.

It had been the first time that I'd been to the advanced class, and I was excited. I volunteered first, because I was full of energy, which was a mistake. Knowing how to protect yourself a bit did not prepare you for something even as light as a spar against the Wolverine.

I pressed forward again. His footwork that he'd been teaching us over the past few weeks had done all of nothing for me to get him out of position, but he said to keep moving, so I that was what I did. Even though he'd been punching with the same speed and force as the one that had dropped me minutes before, he didn't land another clean blow for the rest of the round.

Small victories, though. With seconds left on the clock, his arms stopped defending quite as tightly around his stocky body as before, and his chin stopped being tucked so tightly to his chest. It was an opening that I jumped all over, even though it could have been a trap. What was the worst that could happen? He'd hit me again? I was already bleeding.

I jumped in and landed a hard roundhouse kick to the body and a hard follow-up jab as I straightened back up. The alarm signaling the end of the round went off, and every bump and bruise he'd given me over the last five minutes started throbbing at once painfully with every beat of my heart.

He totally let me have that one. I knew it. But I really didn't care. Actually making solid contact almost made me do a little dance while I was pulling off my gloves and headgear. That had been a brutal experience, and a nifty little introduction into real fist-fighting.

I passed a kid black kid my age with glasses who was next up to take on Mr. Logan.

"Your turn," I said, smiling at him. He nodded at me gravely and leveled his focus on the instructor that had kicked me to and fro for the last five minutes. Following that was probably an unenviable position, but how could anyone wind up much worse than I did?

I sat down on the sideline, ignoring the quiet laughs from some of the other guys in the room and dabbed at my nose and mouth, pulling my hand away to see the skin coated in my own blood. My nose felt like it was on fire, and I wasn't going to be eating anything with salt until the cut in my mouth closed up.

"Do any of those hurt?"

I looked over and saw some of the other students that were sitting in on the advanced hand-to-hand course. Thus far, most of my student interaction had come from Hisako, Eddie, and Ruth, because I was on their squad. Most others didn't bother saying much to me, because why would they? There was no reason to. I wasn't particularly interesting. I didn't come with some kind of backstory as to why I was there that was so novel everyone had to take notice. I was just… there.

The question came from a girl with brown hair done in a long ponytail. She spoke with a slight accent that led me to believe she came from some sort of Spanish-speaking country. Her name was Sofia. I'd heard it used enough that day to remember.

"Uh, you're gonna have to tell me what all of 'those' are," I said, frowning. I could see her cringing as she looked my way directly while I was talking. I must have been quite the sight, "I only know about the nose and the mouth."

She looked at who I figured was her friend, a blond girl who seemed markedly more hesitant to look at the mess that was my face. She must have been more timid, "Your nose, mouth, eye, and God knows where else you got hit that we can't see," Sofia said.

"Yes. All of it hurts."

I would feel better after I slept, if what Dr. McCoy told me before was correct. That in of itself was another problem, but one thing at a time.

"So is this normal, or did I just catch him on a really bad day?" I asked, continuing to make conversation as the other kid from before did his sparring round. To my consternation, he did a lot better technique-wise than I did, and it looked like Logan went a lot easier on him than he did on me.

"I don't know. It's definitely not normal," Sofia told me, watching the match as it progressed, "Mr. Logan never beat one of us that badly during a spar before. He would normally just correct us when our form was wrong and continue."

Well he certainly did that for me, if 'correcting my form' meant beating me to a pulp every time I gave him a big enough opening to do so.

"What?" I asked, sort of put off by the idea of being singled out during something as painful as combat practice, "Is… is this like a new guy initiation/hazing thing?"

"I don't think so," Sofia asked, her features scrunching up in what I figured was concern, "Are you certain you're alright?"

Don't look like a punk in front of the girls, Bel. You're a manly gentleman.

"I'm like 60% sure he pulled his punches," I said, trying to focus on the fight and see what this guy was doing that I wasn't that kept Mr. Logan from wailing on him the way he did to me, "I kicked the guy - hard. He barely budged. He's rock-solid. If he'd actually wanted to lay me out, he would have."

I heard a faint 'VRRRR' humming noise and felt a slap against the back of my head. I turned in the direction it came from and saw one of the other guys in the line with a green glow around his hand. Sofia turned to glare at him, only getting what he likely considered a charming grin in return.

"Is that a new guy initiation/hazing thing?" I asked, annoyed, but not flinching or even bothering to rub my head from the contact.

"That's a 'Keller' thing." A blue-haired Asian girl sitting nearby said, scoffing at the juvenile antics of some of the other guys in the class, "You never really get used to that."

Yeah, sometimes it was easy to forget that the Xavier Institute was still a place full of dumbass, impulsive kids. Not all mature, cool, and level-headed like me.

I tried to piece it all together on the spot before I hauled off and shot at him from fifteen feet away over a lineup of people.

This guy thought Sofia was hot, and probably figured I was making some kind of move on her. Not likely, but that was what he thought. Top-of-the-food-chain guys like him never thought any further than a step or two in any direction. He clearly had some kind of crew/posse/unit/whatever-the-fuck-people-were-calling-themselves-these-days, and those guys basically saw me just get my ass handed to me, painting a big ol' target of vulnerability on my back.

Clearly, superhero high school was still high school, complete with all of the familiar dressings and trappings.

Fun times were soon to be had by all.