Hitchin' A Ride (Part One)

Late nights were for killing time. And nothing killed time quite like getting my sweat on. Unfortunately, doing it alone too much was lame. There was only so many times I could grunt and yell to myself in the gym at 3 o'clock in the morning. Fortunately, I had a live-in training partner, and he didn't pull punches.

…Didn't pull many punches. And by punches, I mean claws and fangs.

In the wooded area around the Xavier Institute, Saberwolf came at me with the ferocity and agility that one would expect of a mechanized beast, knowing that in a battle of physical attributes, I had no answer for him.

I ducked under a set of dull throwing knives that bounced off the trunk of a tree. Thankfully, he had swapped out most of his lethal armaments for more practice-appropriate equipment. He kept his claws safely pulled back so as not to dice me into pieces every time he touched me. We also left his chainsaw in my room in exchange for a well-shaped wooden replica.

I remember spending a nice afternoon just hanging around carving it with Wolf and my team. Apparently, Eddie was good with woodworking. Who knew? I bring this up, because I really don't like talking about how poorly I perform in combat against Wolf. That wooden chainsaw still hurt. It was heavy.

"You cannot simply flee," My A.I. roommate advised as he proceeded to stalk and chase me down through the woods, "There is nowhere to escape to, and no reinforcements are coming. You must defeat this opponent to survive. Fight me."

"I would love to!" I replied, firing shots every so often, none of which seemed to do the job for one reason or another, "Just as soon as I figure out how!"

He was a tough nut to crack. I'd never even gotten close to making him worry about losing to me. I couldn't damage his body, not only because it was incredibly sturdy, but because he was really hard to hit. He was built to hunt down mutants, as in plural. One teenage mutant still growing into his powers couldn't have posed much of a challenge to him at all.

"Your shots are panicked and rushed," He explained calmly as he dashed through the dark in an effort to get within reach of me, "Your blasts may move at the speed of light, but your body does not react at such a speed. A quicker opponent will be able to evade, if they pay close enough attention."

"Save the lectures for after this is over, please!" I demanded, gritting my teeth as I watched him duck around and through several trees to throw me off of his pattern of approach. When he could get away with it, he'd climb a tree out of my line of sight and jump me from above.

Other than the immediate area I could light with my glow, the only parts of Wolf I could usually see was the red glow of his visor.

I heard the creak of branches and quickly threw a blade of light up into the air, pruning a nice portion of the canopy and flushing the big metal bastard out of hiding.

Believe it or not, as scary as it was, that was the easy part – preventing the ambush. All you had to do was pay close enough attention. After he snuck up on you a few times, you started to pick up some tricks. No, actually fighting the fucker was the worst part.

He landed gracefully on the ground and pounced at me. What normally would have been a giant, sharp metal whirlwind became a spinning mini-tank.

I jumped out of the way and gave myself a boost with a shot directed to the side. It had the added effect of hitting Wolf when he landed. Unfortunately he tanked the hit and dove at me again, knocking me down and pinning me underneath his foot.

"Well done," He said, shaking off the damage as though he had merely gotten wet, "You need to do more damage with your attacks."

I scoffed from my back on the cold ground as I glared up at him, "Yeah. Sure. I'll get right on that. Get off of me already!" I shouted.

Hey, it's not being a sore loser to take defeat badly. I didn't make any excuses when I failed. I accepted defeat. I just despised it with every fiber of my being.

Wolf did as I asked and got off of me, "You have more power at your disposal," He said, "You should utilize it against more durable foes."

"More power?" I said, at a loss as I leaned up and brushed myself off, "Maybe if I charged a Lux Bomb, I guess," Having the time to make one was the real problem with something like that.

It was an option, but not what he was looking for, "Yes, that would do considerable damage to me, but your blasts fluctuate in strength. You utilize significantly more restraint in live combat than in, say, simulations."

I blew a raspberry and pushed myself up to my feet, "No way."

Wolf ignored my 'mature' response and argued his point, "You told me you did damage to Iron Man's armor and destroyed the head of a Sentinel. That much force would be adequate to do considerable harm to me."

I stopped and thought about it. I did do those things, all before I came up with the Lux Bomb. And yet, against Donald Pierce I hardly hurt him. Maybe I did hold myself back. Maybe it was subconscious, because I sure didn't give a crap about maiming that cyborg asshole.

"You do not need to hold back against me, Bellamy," Saberwolf said, sitting back on his haunches as he waited for me to ready myself once more, "While my entire body is not as durable as my chainsaw, I believe I can stand up to your more powerful blasts."

Whether it was subconscious or not, this wasn't the same thing, "You say that now, and then we'll have to hunt down someone that can actually fix you when something goes wrong," I wasn't going to break my buddy, even if he was artificial intelligence, "I'm kicking hardware engineering's ass, but I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to put you back together."

"You do not need to be concerned with that. You will not be able to destroy my body," He said, his thin tail swishing in the air behind him.

He was challenging me, which made my blood boil, "Oh, is that so?" I asked standing ready to get a piece of him once again, "Even after all that stuff you just said?"

"Yes," Wolf said, his legs bent, ready to attack, "Because you must be able to hit me at all for it to matter."

Man, I am shockingly easy to goad into a fight.