Loose Ends (Part Three)

Later in the day, it was time to train on individual skills, which meant we all split off to work with a senior X-Men member that had a better idea of what to do with our particular powers.

I wound up sitting in with Cyclops, which seemed to happen a lot, actually. I was joined by Match, Surge, Wind Dancer, Dust, and Armor. All of us had powers that we could project at multiple ranges... except for Armor. She was strictly close-range. But her only other option was to sit in with 'tanks' like Rockslide, and she didn't want any part of that, so she went with us.

It wasn't a combat class. We'd learned enough about fighting, and had to deal with it enough that it served to practice without trying to kill each other for once. Everyone had to take turns describing and demonstrating more uses for their powers than just hurling them in people's faces to win a fight.

Damn. That tended to be my go-to use for my powers.

When we finally got to my turn, I hesitated to come up with anything more extensive than just making myself glow. And Cyclops didn't go easy on me. We kept it on me until I came up with something to share, even opening up the floor to others to try and contribute solutions.

That day, I learned that my friends are all as dumb as I am.

"You control light, don't you?" Surge said, sitting on the floor with the others while I stood at the head of the room with Cyclops, "Doesn't that meant you should be able to turn invisible and stuff?"

Uh, no. That wasn't how it worked. I mean, I could kind of bend light, but people could still see me if they were alert enough. Besides, it only worked at all when I wasn't moving.

"I don't control anything. I absorb light and project it," I told her. It wasn't like I was light personified, or the essence of light. I was a dude that could toss light around, "I'm like an overgrown lamp with a solar battery."

Cyclops had to block a smile from the backhanded way I described myself, covering for it by clearing his throat, "You're skilled with the way you use your powers, but eventually you may have need for more than just brute force."

Armor, never missing an opportunity to good-naturedly give me the business, followed up, "Yeah, blowing everything up can only be so useful," She taunted. I flipped her off, keeping my hand below my waist so Cyclops didn't see it. I was pretty sure he still did though, because he nudged me.

True enough though, violence could only go so far. It wasn't like I could fight with everything to solve my problems, "Well... there are a few things I've been screwing around with."

Cyclops seemed interested in what I had up my sleeve, "Please. Share with the class, Bellamy."

I took the cue to begin focusing my energy to my eyes. Given what I could do with the laser pointer trick, one would figure that the more light I pushed to my eyes, the more destructive it would be, right? Not in this case.

Match was the first to comment on whatever change occurred when I did this, "Whoa. What's with your eyes, man?"

Whatever he saw, I had no idea. I imagined that it made my eyes look like headlights, but again, it wasn't like I could check for myself, or that I cared. The only thing that really mattered to me was what this change actually accomplished.

"I'm looking through stuff," I explained, looking around the room. I adjusted my output to see through different things, "Takes more power to see through denser objects."

"Jeez," Surge remarked, "You have x-ray eyes. Why has this never come up before?"

"Four reasons," I said, starting to list things off on my fingers, "One? Because it hasn't been that long since I figured it out. Two? Because holding it fucking hurts my eyes. Three? Because when would I have ever used it in the field before now?"

"-On the ship when we were looking for Quire," Armor aptly pointed out.

I paused to glare at her, and had nothing to respond with, because damn it, she had a point.

"...Five reasons then," I amended, adding another number for the sake of accuracy, "Four; because I forgot I could do it."

"-And you could use it to, like, look through girl's clothes and stuff," Armor finished with a suspicious glance. Her hands subtly moved up to try and cover herself up.

Armor's stupid use for a new wrinkle to my powers actually led to part of my explanation of why it never came up in front of others until then.

"Reason number five," I started, slightly annoyed, "All light is radiation. How much radiation do you think it takes to look through stuff? A lot," I deadpanned, "I really don't feel like staring cancer into my classmates just to be nosy all the time."

"Anything else?" Cyclops asked.

I turned my super eyes off and rubbed them, trying to readjust to standard sight, "Uh... I can see in infrared too. It hurts less, and it's less radiation, but it just means I can see in the dark."

Not the most impressive aspect of my powers, but the point had been to demonstrate a use that wasn't overtly violent. It actually wound up being a pretty fun session, watching everyone screw around with their powers in ways they wouldn't have tried if someone were actively trying to kill us.

When time was up and our little session was over, everyone started to leave, but Cyclops kept me back, "Just a moment, if you don't mind, Bellamy."

If I didn't mind? It didn't matter if I minded or not. The dude gave me my marching orders in the X-Men and had a hand in running the day-to-day for the school. If he wanted to stop me to talk, we were having a conversation.

I hung back and shut the door, just in case sensitive information was passed between us. I couldn't get a feel for how serious things were from his tone and body language though, "What's up?"

Not bothering with small talk, he cut right to the heart of the matter, "What do you think about our telepath situation?"

As far as I'd been aware, the Cuckoos had been doing a good enough job, both when working support from Cerebra, and in the field against the Imperfects.

"I didn't realize there was one," I replied.

Cyclops shrugged, "There isn't. I was just trying to prime you for a suggestion," He said before hesitating momentarily, "...Do you think it's possible to recruit Quentin for your team?"

"Are you out of your fucking mind?" I replied out of reflex. I was prepared to apologize when I confirmed to myself that I was entirely justified in my response, "He's not going to listen to me, and I'm not sure I could kick his ass into line."

Belligerent wasn't a strong enough word to describe what I felt Quire would be if he were placed under my command. I'd heard some terrible ideas lately, and had plenty of my own, but this took the cake for recent ill-conceived aims.

Working with Ruth and the Cuckoos had given me a pretty good leg up as far as my telepathic defenses went, and from dealing with Julian I was aware of how to fight telekinetics, but I had never fought someone capable of both at once. And unlike the others, if the shit went down with Quire and I had to go head-to-head with him, it wouldn't be an exercise or a schoolyard tiff. There was no doubt in my mind that we would be playing for keeps, so to speak.

In fact, why did we even need him on the team anyway? The Cuckoos were doing a fine job as the designated telepaths on the team as far as I was concerned.

"What would he even bring to the table?" I asked Cyclops aloud, "We're just starting to get a feel for this whole team thing. Do you really want to throw a spanner in the works now?"

Not to mention, there were still other existing personnel problems abound to deal with that didn't involve that guy.

We didn't need him. I knew we didn't need him. More importantly, Cyclops knew we didn't need him, and he had from the beginning, "To be honest, it's more of a matter of how the team could help rehabilitate him."

I knew there were high expectations for me from both Mister Summers and Miss Frost, but I wasn't a miracle worker. Getting Laura to play ball with the Paladins, or finding a way to arrange the roster so that Julian and Noriko didn't attempt to murder each other on my watch wasn't the same thing as getting Quentin Quire to be a good boy.

Also, even if I could do something, that didn't mean I wanted to, or that I was going to. It seemed like a lot of work for someone that I didn't even like. I'd had enough of that dealing with Jay Guthrie, thank you.

"Last time I checked; he didn't seem to want to buddy up to anybody," I said, trying to be as cagey as possible in the hopes that Cyclops didn't push the issue.

"Maybe not," Cyclops admitted, "But he's still here when he could have already flown the coop. Emma believes he doesn't feel he has anywhere he can go."

And there it was. Maybe I was developing telepathy, because damned if I didn't see that one coming from a mile away.

"My heart bleeds for him," I muttered under my breath before speaking up, "Look, you said I had a say on who could and couldn't be on the team roster. Well, I'm saying 'no way' for this one. You'd be better off waiting for Jay to recover, then throwing him on the team than Quire," I paused as I took stock of how my words could have been construed, "...I'm vetoing that too by the way, if it was ever on the table."

"It wasn't," Cyclops assured me, seemingly amused if the slight quirk of his mouth was anything to go by.

My body relaxed. I hadn't even realized I'd tensed up at some point in the conversation. Well, at least there was one thing I didn't have to throw a shit fit about.

If he really wanted Quire groomed for a team, he could do it himself, or stick Quire with someone who could actually take on the monumental task of keeping him on a leash. The fact of the matter was that I was not the man for the job, nor was my team the place for such a thing. No seeds of discord would be planted in my already chaotic garden of junior X-Men.

Thankfully, shooting down the guy in charge didn't seem to generate any negativity my way.

"No problem then. Just considering my options," Cyclops said, shaking off my refusal gracefully, "Dr. Garrison suggested ingratiating Quentin back into things at school after he reaches a certain point in his therapy with him."

Therapy? They had Quire doing therapy? How the fuck was that going to work? Quire was a telepath. He could get into Dr. Garrison's head with his powers better than Dr. Garrison could with his shrink techniques. Quire would probably get annoyed and turn his brain to mush if he got too bored.

Whatever. There weren't enough hours in the day to put out all of the fires that popped up around there, even if I was an insomniac. Not everything in this goddamn school had to be my problem.

...Yeah right.