Chasing The Dragon (Part Four)

After getting back to the dorms, I came across my former Paladin crew in the common area we tended to frequent. It was good that even with Ruth not being a member of the X-Men squad, she still felt no reason not to stick with us. She actually seemed happier now that she didn't have to train to fight.

The first thing I saw was poor Hisako sprawled out on a couch, face planted in an open book. Unfortunately, being on a superhero team didn't absolve you from class responsibilities. She'd probably been studying when she decided that enough was enough and she'd just collapsed into the pages. I poked at her as I walked past, only to get an annoyed groan out of her.

When I took my seat next to Laura, Ruth clambered right next to me on my other side. I winced when she latched onto me like a barnacle, as she jostled my shoulder. She immediately noticed my reaction and let go, apologizing, "Sorry. Yes. She did not mean to hurt you. Yes."

I gave her a little nudge with my head against hers to let her know it was alright. Laura, being the person that put my shoulder back into place, also fussed over me a bit.

"Are you still in pain?" She asked, green eyes shining with concern.

I leaned over and gave Laura a kiss on the forehead, "I'll be fine," I told her, "If my body decides this is enough damage to let me sleep tonight, I'll be as good as new tomorrow morning."

Laura seemed a bit put out and I wondered why until she vocalized her reason with a question, "Does this mean you don't want me to spend the night in your room?"

Absolutely not. She would have an open invite to my quarters for as long as we were together, "I never said that. Besides, we don't have to do it every time you stay over," I paused for a moment to consider what I'd just said, "...Unless you want to. I'm definitely not gonna say no."

At that point, Eddie butted his way into the conversation, "Yeah-yeah, you two having sex, whatever," He said, pushing Hisako's legs off of her couch to make room for himself. The tired girl sat up properly, glaring at him the entire time, "More importantly, seeing as how someone left me on the bench for today's mission, and you three are here now, I demand details. Tell me a tale. Spin me a yarn."

While I thought of a way to tell Eddie about the day's events in an entertaining manner, one of my other friends felt malicious enough to take all of the fun out of it.

Still glaring at Eddie for making her sit up, Hisako dryly laid out the entire interesting series of events, "We landed and had to fight a girl with needle arms who could cause earthquakes, and a guy made of 100 other guys."

It was almost remarkable how she could say something like that and make it sound as uninteresting as she did. Even Laura would have put more life and spirit into it. She at least would have been more descriptive.

"Bellamy ordered the Three-In-One to cast an illusion on the girl," Laura picked up the explanation, "She was tricked into killing her comrade before retreating."

Eddie let out a low whistle and looked my way, "Wow. Adding to the old body count, huh Bel?"

I wanted to chuck a pillow off of the couch at him, "And how the hell do you figure that?" I demanded to know.

Lucky for Eddie, Hisako spared him my diatribe by defending me, "To be fair, Bel is, at best, mmm... third-hand responsible for this one."

Hey, a half-assed defense still counted as a defense. The intent had been there, even if the effort had been subpar. Besides, I could explain myself just fine.

"Yeah, it's not like I blew his head off myself," I said, realizing that pretending that I hadn't at least made the attempt to do so would have been disingenuous, "I mean, I did try. But I'm pretty sure Brigade could have taken a tank round to the face and brushed it off."

Also, I wasn't sure what the rules of engagement are on what was basically Frankenstein's monster. Taking him out was probably doing him (or them) a favor.

Eddie muttered his response, "God knows the Paladins have produced enough corpses," I must have been scowling from how he backtracked, "I'm just saying, I don't imagine any of the others would get it if they watched you erase someone's face."

I had to admit, he had a point there, as past evidence already alluded to, "Probably, seeing as how the Hellions literally stopped me from murder-death-killing the most awful bitch I've had to fight so far," Laura tensed, knowing I had been talking about Kimura. I reached down and gave her hand a squeeze, "After us, they were the next hardest student squad."

Hisako scoffed, "We're only 'hard' because you and I got trapped on Breakworld. That, and Laura's past that makes all of our stuff look like child's play."

True. The only time life started slapping us all in the face was after we'd all decided to attend Xavier's. Besides, even if we only had Laura's baggage, that still meant more bodies than all of the other student squads combined. The fact that Hisako and I basically fought a interplanetary war to boot only reinforced that.

Eddie held up his hands defensively, worried he'd offended any of us, "Don't think I'm jumping down anyone's throat, dude. I get it. Being all P.C. superhero stops when the bad guy is pointing a gun at everyone you care about."

I believed that he got it. Because unlike many of the student combatants that had been sequestered away in the sub-levels as a last line of defense, he had been outside with me when the Sapien League and the Purifiers had attacked. He'd seen just what the people who wanted our heads were willing to bring to bear in order to make such a thing happen.

Also, being a complete bro, even if I was fucking up in some way, he'd at least try to understand why I was doing it. Really, you couldn't ask for a better friend.

From there, we just hung out together. It had been a while since we could all just wind down and spend time with each other. It was a nice little come-down from people trying to kill us earlier that day.

We shifted over to a very important conversation for the time. It being a few weeks before the holidays, I needed to make my list and check it twice, "'Tis the season. What do you jerks want for Christmas? Or Hanukkah? Or... whatever you celebrate?" I asked them.

Hisako, being the contrarian that she was, couldn't make things easy, "Aren't you just supposed to get us what you think we'll like? Or something heartfelt and meaningful? It's the thought that counts, Bel."

I just stared across the sitting area at Hisako, near to the point of social discomfort, "...I'm hearing 'nice pair of socks' from you," She stuck her tongue out at me.

Eddie, on the other hand, fully embraced the capitalistic spirit of the holidays, "Fuck that. What's the spending limit?"

A good, sensible question that I was prepared to answer, "Around fifty bucks, I guess. Not for you," I quickly specified for Laura's sake, "Just tell me what you want that I can get within reason, and I'll make it happen."

Laura seemed confused by the concept of gift-giving, "But I don't want anything."

Eddie immediately complained at my show of favoritism, "Why does she get no limit? You know, other than the obvious reasons," He lewdly made a show of finger into hole to illustrate his point.

I pointed right next to myself at Laura, "Because I'm pretty sure she's never gotten a fucking present before," Laura nodded in casual confirmation. As if it weren't one of the saddest things anyone had heard all day.

Eddie wanted to continue being belligerent but couldn't find anything to latch onto to keep arguing, "...That's actually a good point."

"I'm hearing 'big bag of chocolate dicks' for you," I said. Eddie flipped me off in return, "Why are you all making this so hard? Tell me what you want so I can shower you in appreciation for putting up with me," A quick thought was put into my head of what Ruth wanted, "Thank you, Ruthie," She readily accepted my thanks with a big grin, "At least one of you is down with the program. Please get me something by Monday."

Because I did not want to be caught out shopping with only days to go. Last minute shopping was hell to me. Even a few weeks out was cutting it close to running into the crowds.

All frivolity was thrown out the window when Sooraya came into the common area, wringing her hands worriedly. The moment she saw us, she ran right over and threw herself to the floor. We were all up with a start. Before anyone could ask what was wrong, she looked up with tears in her eyes through the opening of her niqab.

"Jay is gone!" She exclaimed.

I was on the floor with her in an instant, grasping her shoulders, "What do you mean, 'Jay is gone'? How is he gone?" She didn't have an immediate answer, instead shaking her head, "Fuuuuck... Cuckoos!" I shouted both out loud and in my head. I needed to summon a team.

Jay took Quire? Why would he take Quire?

Seriously? Who wants Quire? We didn't even want Quire.

Much like the last time I had to go after him, the team I called upon were again entirely New Mutants. Prodigy, Surge, Elixir, Wind Dancer, and Wallflower. I figured that they could talk him down, and if worse came to worse, Wallflower could use her pheromones on him to make him chill out.

Before I knew it, I was jogging with the boys of the team from the locker room to the hangar, suited up and ready to go.

"Where the hell was Cannonball?" Elixir asked. the gold-skinned boy had gotten dressed slower than the rest of us, and was stuck adjusting his uniform as we ran, "When we went to see Jay, he was watching him like a hawk."

To be fair, I managed to find a moment to slip in without being bothered, "A guy's gotta go to the bathroom sometime," I said.

It wasn't like Jay had been badly hurt. Yes, I'd probably broken his back during our fight, but he could heal like Laura or Logan did. There was no doubt that physically he was 100%.

If he really wanted to leave, he could find a way out. I just figured it would have taken longer for him to make a run for it. His mom hadn't even managed to make it up to school to see him and likely take him home yet.

My ass was chapped over the fact that I had to do the exact same thing twice in less than 36 hours, but work was work, "Whatever," I eventually settled as we boarded the jet, "The Blackbird is warmed up, the Cuckoos are in Cerebra. Let's go chase Icarus down."

"Make sure you don't break this one," Surge remarked. The girls were already in the Blackbird, strapped into their seats when we arrived, "Pretty sure Cyclops will make you pay for this one out of pocket if you crash it."

"I didn't crash the last one," I pointed out, "A girl with arms that could cause an earthquake punched it, or something. I don't know. Let's just go already." It was then that I noticed we had an extra teammate. One that I hadn't sanctioned to be on the team, "Uh, hello."

Sooraya sat in a seat of her own, already buckled in, which meant she was not willing to take no for an answer, "I wish to accompany you."

Right. Through the whole Hellions/New Mutants feud, Sooraya and Jay had always been the ones that had respected each other. They had some kind of thing. What that thing was, I had no idea, nor did I care. But seeing as how I wanted this to end with the least amount of violence and heartbreak possible, an extra set of peaceful hands couldn't hurt.

That being said, I wasn't just going to have someone subvert my roster without working for it in some way. Even if I was fine with having her there, I was going to make her sweat a bit to earn it,

I fixed her with a stern look, bringing my full height to bear, "I don't remember asking Phoebe, Celeste, and Mindee to send you to the hangar, Sooraya," It was awesome being the tallest humanoid mutant on the team.

From how she refused to meet my gaze at first, and how even the more outspoken members of the team (Surge, Wind Dancer, Elixir) didn't stand up to me, I did seem to have some sort of semblance of authority amongst my peers. I was told such, but it was good to know for certain.

Sooraya took a breath and measured her words before letting them go - a quality that I, personally, needed more work with, "I want to help Jay," She said, "We've spoken many times about our faith. I... wasn't able to do anything to help him when he was doubting his faith in Allah. That led him to Stryker. Everything that has happened since then, I want to show him that people care. That we can help him."

I stared at her without moving, trying to see if she would falter, but she didn't, and we were wasting time, "...Alright."

To everyone's surprise, I consented without any fuss and simply moved to the controls to begin taking off. I was acutely aware that everyone was staring at the back of my head. I ignored them all.

David took his seat in the co-pilot chair once we were safely in the air, eyeing me oddly behind his goggles, "That's it?"

"Yeah. I'm not a complete dick," I said, focusing more on following the directions the Cuckoos were putting into my head, "Don't get used to it though. The next person who tries to push their way onto a mission I don't put them on is getting kicked the fuck off the plane."