Team Dynamics (Part One)

Being leader of the to-be student squad of X-Men meant more responsibility. Part of that responsibility involved lots of research; lots of study. If I weren't an insomniac, and thus had the full 24 hours of any given day available to me, I probably would have complained about all of the extra work. As it stood, I just had to find a window of time where I was bored enough to power through and get it done.

My window came on a day where Eddie and I were lazing around in my dorm room. My part of the building hadn't taken much damage in the Purifiers/Sapien League attack like the common area had, so the Paladins dropped by more to hang out than they had to before.

Eddie sat around, being a bum and freeloading with my assortment of gaming consoles, while I sat on my bed, surrounded by student files. It was honestly distressing to be surrounded by that much paperwork, but I could handle it.

"There," I finally said, having read through each and every sheet detailing all of my future underlings, "No one can say I'm not trying to prepare for this. Now the next step is to talk to everyone and lay down the law."

I assumed that doing so wouldn't require much, if any, strong-arming. To get people onboard, they would have had to have been told what was happening. If anyone accepted from that point forward with hopes of usurping my spot, they were in for a rude awakening. I was more of less told that one of the reasons I was chosen was specifically because I had little problems with busting someone's ass to keep them in line if need be. Not that I was eager to. I liked just about everyone chosen for the squad.

Eddie set his controller aside and looked at the names in the corner of each file, "So... me, Armor, Match, Pixie, Wolf Cub, Elixir, Prodigy, Surge, Wallflower, Wind Dancer, Dust, Hellion, Mercury, Rockslide, the Cuckoos..." He sat, counting off people on his fingers until he got to the end, "You've got a pool of 15 possible teammates so far, dude... and yes, I'm counting all three Cuckoos as one teammate."

I nodded, understanding where he was coming from "-And no control over who I get on any given day."

Eddie shook his head and scowled, not pleased at one of the decisions he saw, "I don't see how Wallflower made the cut, but Blindfold didn't."

Really? Because I definitely could, "That's just the Paladin bias in you. I love Ruthie to pieces, but altogether, the Cuckoos are absolutely the better telepaths right now. Also, they turn into diamond. What's not to like about that?"

Moreover, I'd never asked, but I was pretty sure Ruth had no desire to suit-up as an X-Man, at least right then.

Eddie let out a non-committal hum before he picked up Megan's file and waved it around, "Can you even work with Pixie?" I glared at him, "I'm just saying. I would have asked that before you guys broke up too, but now that you're not banging anymore, won't it be weird to give her orders?"

I snatched the file out of his hand and put it back amongst the others, "Seeing as how none of those orders will involve 'banging me', as you so delicately put it, I don't think it'll be an issue," At that point, an idea thread was pulled, unraveling a whole blanket of thoughts, "Oh, God, you just put this in my head. There's too much relationship shit in this lineup."

Relationship shit made all teams suffer. It caused in-fighting and resentment. It could annoy others. No matter what happened, it was all going to fall on my head. And we had no shortage of romantic entanglements. Prodigy and Surge, Hellion and Wind Dancer, Wing and Mercury, Elixir and Wallflower, me and Pixie, me and Laura-.

...Wait a minute.

I quickly rifled through the stack of personnel folders that contained the briefings of all potential student team members. No Laura Kinney in sight, "Why the hell isn't Laura in this lineup? I need her on this team more than all of you poor saps put together."

Eddie quickly came to the same realization that I had, "Huh... she isn't. Think it's because she still doesn't have a codename yet?"

I hoped it wasn't for a reason that stupid. We kept meaning to give her one, but she either always gave us the slip during the naming process, or we all just got bored and moved onto something else before finishing the task at hand.

All I knew was that I was going to get on someone's ass about this, just as soon as I found out who to go to. It would obviously be one of four people - Mister Rasputin, Dr. Garrison, Mister Summers, or Miss Frost. I could find the time to bitch at each of them until I got my answers. Why? Because Laura was worth it. I would always feel much better going into battle with a claw-knuckled berserker babe on my team. Who didn't want that watching their back?

Speaking of claws, or someone with claws, Saberwolf opened the door and walked in. Not something that was worth paying attention to by itself. The sound that accompanied him, however, was.

"What is that whirring noise?" I asked.

Eddie shrugged, "I dunno? The Playstation's still on," Both he and I had noticed the sound, but it wasn't a constant thing. It only happened every so often, for example, whenever Wolf moved.

"No way. My baby runs quiet," I said in defense of my primary console. I did not defend my living A.I. friend, "Wolf, is that you?"

Wolf froze in place and let the question sink in for a few seconds before replying, "No."

He did nothing to convince me. I walked over and leaned in close. Because he didn't like having his personal space intruded upon, he leaned away and used his tail to shove me back. That was enough to bring up the noise again, "That is you! Is something broken in you again?"

Seeing as how he'd been front-and-center in the gigantic battle against the anti-mutant loonies, it stood to reason that someone got lucky with a good shot that did him harm. Either that, or accumulation of smaller bits of damage finally started getting to him. I remembered watching him take a few bullets.

With my accusation, Wolf turned away, not even bothering to dispute it, "I am not going to Forge again," He said resolutely.

I couldn't understand his reasoning, "Why the hell not? He fixed you last time. He upgraded you last time," He made him look downright badass and had streamlined some of his features.

"-Without being asked," Wolf added, detailing his problem with Forge's adjustments, "You do not understand how violating it is to have changes made to your body without consent."

Eddie winced sympathy with our mechanized comrade, "To be fair, Sol, I could imagine it's a lot like going in for surgery and having the doctor add two extra arms or something."

When he put it that way, it did sound awful. But still, Wolf needed to get checked out, and Forge was the only person I was aware of who would actually spare the time to service him and had the ability to do so, "Well, this time I'll go to make sure he doesn't mess with anything else," He still seemed apprehensive, "Wolf, if I have to go to the medical bay every time I get fucked up-."

"-Which is a lot compared to the rest of us," Eddie chimed in without being asked.

I barreled through the interruption to make my point, "-You've got to go and get yourself looked at. You're my friend, and I want you to be as healthy as possible."

Using the magical f-word that wasn't profanity seemed to be just the ticket to get Saberwolf onboard, though not without a concession, "Promise me that you will not let me out of your sight."

That was easy enough to agree to, "I promise," I remembered wanting to go with him last time.

The accord was sealed with flesh-and-blood hand shaking cold, metal paw.