First Impressions (Part Two)

A few years before I showed up, the Institute was just a school. It was a place for kids with powers that they couldn't safely control or hide. A safe place.

As it turns out, this school was not fucking safe. At all.

It had been attacked more times than most students knew, and I'd heard about at least three separate instances from them since I'd been there.

Well, after one of the last few times (we'd been attacked again since this move was made), all students were to be taught at least basic self-defense, and everyone was to be taught how to master their powers.

Some students in particular that volunteered and showed an aptitude for what was needed were offered the chance to be X-Men and go through their training program.

I had done none of this. I was asked to join by one of the X-Men in charge of a student team, with only two weeks of standard self-defense and power-control courses under my belt.

I felt so out of place as I was led into a gigantic metal room. It looked like it was the size of an empty, full-scale arena, with some kind of big, weird platform in the middle. It looked kind of like a round stage.

Waiting there were three other students, all wearing similar uniforms to mine. I tugged at the weird form-fitting outfit. It had a light and dark blue color scheme. Design-wise, everyone else's seemed a bit different in some way.

When we walked up, two of the students stared at me, not helping with my sense of self-consciousness. The third one was Ruth. Huh. Go figure. Seriously, how the hell was she on a combat team if she couldn't even see? As for the other two students, one was a Japanese girl with long black hair. The other was a lanky boy with red hair that would have been better defined as the bedhead-special.

"Hey Miss Pryde," He said, taking note of my presence, "So this is the new guy?"

Miss Pryde grinned at him and leaned over on me with her forearm on my shoulder. Man, she was short. Or maybe I was just tall? "So new. Super-new. Still got that new kid smell and everything," She told her team, "This is Bellamy."

The Japanese girl crossed her arms over her chest and looked me over, pursing her lips in thought. It didn't seem like she knew what to make of this, "I don't know what I was expecting when Ruth kept saying things about some 'Bellamy' person."

"All good things, I hope," I said, waving at Ruth until I realized that she couldn't see me, "She's pretty much the only person I've had any kind of conversation with since I've been here."

"How's that been?"

"Really confusing."

"Yep."

Professor Pride moved between the four of us to make sure she had all of our attention, "Since we're all going to be working together, why don't we introduce ourselves and give each other a little rundown of what we can all do," She turned to me "I'll start for the benefit of our new guy. My name is Kitty Pryde. Shadowcat in the field. My power is intangibility."

To demonstrate, she sank partially into the floor down to her knees before reemerging. I had already seen her come through a wall before, so I wasn't surprised. It was still a neat power.

"I can pass through walls, gunfire… pretty much anything," She continued to explain, "If I don't want it to touch me, it won't."

With that being said, the group fell silent. I figured she was leaving the floor open for someone else to introduce themselves, so I decided to pick up where I left off. It wasn't like I was shy about who I was or what I did.

"Well, as you guys know already, I'm Bellamy. Bellamy Marcher," I said, shrugging before I gave the best explanation of my powers that I could, "I absorb light and then do… stuff with it," I didn't mean to be vague on purpose. Just saying that I could fire energy blasts and use light like instant steroids didn't sound as cool as it actually was in practice.

My offer was enough of an olive branch extension for the others to jump on in, "Hisako Ichiki," The Japanese girl said simply, giving me her name, "I can create psionic armor to fight with."

As a demonstration, a blue armor made of some kind of raw energy formed around Hisako. Her body was safely insulated inside with plenty of space between the core where she was and the outside world. That was pretty damn cool. I always thought she had the most useful power out of all of us.

"Whoa," The stupid part of me that wanted to know what it felt like told me to reach out and touch it, so I did.

"Hey, hands off!"

Unfortunately, the place where I put my hand was where her chest would have been had the armor not been there. Had Miss Pryde not put her hand on my shoulder at that moment, I probably would have felt what it was like to get punched in the face with superpowers a lot sooner than I did. Her armored fist passed right through me. It was a weird feeling.

"Easy, now!" Miss Pryde said, putting herself between me and Hisako before she could try to hit me again.

"I'm so sorry!" I apologized, wincing at all of the good such a thing would have done after I'd basically groped her. I was assuming that she had in fact felt that much, "I just wanted to see what it felt like! Not your boobs, I mean! I was talking about the armor!"

I am just so fantastic at those first impressions. I don't think Hisako ever quite forgave me for that one.

The lone other male in the group had a good laugh at her expense. He must have had a pretty good rapport with her to get away with it, but he seemingly didn't care. Wiping a tear away from his eye, he introduced himself.

"Eddie Tancredi," He said before pointing to himself as he slowly lifted off of the floor into the air, "The best flyer out of any student in the whole system, just so you know."

My kind of introduction. Whether it was true or it wasn't, he seemed like a good-natured kind of guy.

"Nice to meet you, Bellamy," Eddie landed, walked up, and gave me a pat on the back, "It's good to finally have another guy in the group. Try not to have Hisako kill you before we even have our first team session, would you?"

Hisako rolled her eyes and corrected her teammate, "Seriously though, it's good to have another person in the group, period," She was still mad at me, but at least she recognized that I'd be useful, what with my awesome powers and all, "We were totally undermanned until now."

"How undermanned?" I asked. I had not heard anything about that before I'd agreed to come to the meeting, "…Just for curiosity's sake."

Professor Pride chuckled and answered for me, "Most of the other student squads have six students. We've made do with three until now. You bring us to a grand total of four, that is, if you decided to join. It's still your choice."

"You were fighting other squads 3-on-6 until now?"

"Well, not fighting them directly. You'll almost never do that. More like, competing in mock missions, or just comparing scores from team exercises."

That was still terrible for them! The obvious advantage numbers would give every other squad in almost any kind of mission setting, exercises were likely based somewhat on speed, and speed was probably weighed heavily in whatever scoring system they had. Of course teams with more manpower would finish their tasks sooner.

I had to ask the obvious question, "Why did you have a team with three kids if almost everybody else had six?"

Miss Pryde chuckled in a dark sort of way that I hadn't come to expect from her, "Because the headmistress is a bitch," Hearing that was a surprise. Miss Pryde until then had always been strict, but never really vulgar. It must have shown on my face, because she elaborated, "Emma Frost and I aren't fond of each other. It's a very long story."

I didn't know how much of an understatement this was at the time. I didn't even know other superheroes could hate each other. I would learn. Oh, dear God would I learn.

At the time though, I didn't want to touch that with a ten-foot pole, and there was one member of the team who hadn't said anything yet, despite wearing a very pleased smile on her blindfolded face, "So I saw what everyone else can do already," I said, walking up to Ruth. I was already kind of familiar with her, "What are your powers?"

I had never asked her before because it seemed rude. I don't know. It didn't sound stupid in my head, I swear! I thought it was part of some kind of mutant etiquette. For all I knew, there were people who would take offense to me asking that question, and with my luck I would have run into them my very first time asking!

Ruth wasn't offended, she reached out and grabbed one of my hands with both of hers. What an odd girl, "You do not need to be so nervous, Bellamy. No. Yes, pardon me, she already knows you will be a wonderful teammate. Thank you."

I laughed, trying to play off what she'd just said. I couldn't have been that easy to read, "I'm not nervous."

"You talk and smile a lot when you are nervous, yes."

Goddamn it. How did she even know I was smiling? She couldn't SEE!

Eddie sighed and leaned over Ruth, planting his hands on her shoulders from behind, "…Ruth's powers are… eh. Psychic powers are freaking weird, man," He looked down at the girl, frowning down at her head, "It's really annoying getting your mind read all the time."

"So she can read minds?" I said, figuring she must have picked up on how I was feeling that way. That helped a few things make sense. I wasn't sure how I felt about that.

"She can also see the future, to a certain degree," Miss Pryde told me, "It's very useful, but confusing. Sometimes we can figure it out, and sometimes it sneaks up on us, kind of like with you. She's the one who told us you would be on this team in the first place, before you ever even came here."

Something about hearing that you were supposed to be somewhere was encouraging. That even if it was just blind, random chance in reality, someone was waiting on you to show up to do something, it made you feel good.

I laughed, none too humbly, "It's destiny. I was destined to be here and take this team to all new heights!" I crowed aloud, "…Does this team even have a name or a number? Are we Team 5 or something?"

"The Paladins."

It had a ring to it, kind of. It sort of seemed like it was a little 'try hard'. After I heard all of the squad names, it felt like the people who came up with them were usually trying too hard.

"Huh. Not bad," I said, before clapping my hands and rubbing them together in anticipation, "Now I don't know about you guys, but I came here to learn how to not die. I'm all suited and booted. The quicker we can make me not suck in a fight, the better."

As if I needed the motivation, Eddie was right there hyping me up further, shoving me around, "Yeah! I hear you! Don't be the anchor dragging us down, man!"

Eddie could have been an awesome hype-man. If I hadn't been jazzed before, I definitely was after a few good shoves. It wasn't even fake. I was bouncing in place, raring to go, "I'm ready. It's what I came here to do in the first place. Hit me with your best shot," Wrong choice of words, as Hisako armored up her right arm and drew it back for a punch, "No! I meant with the training, not literally!"