School Spirit (Part Ten)

When I met up with my teammates outside of the main building of the institute, there was an air of finality between the four of us. It was the last day, our last chance to win, or so much as even medal. We'd gotten this close. Sealing the deal was by no means out of the question.

As we approached, Wolf walked over to Ruth. She stooped down and wrapped him up in a big hug around his neck. Oddly enough, he just let her do it. Those two got along well enough, which was good, and it made sense. They had the common ground of having been caught by the same assholes who wanted to harm and exploit them.

Hugging Wolf was dangerous enough in its own right. Even if he wasn't doing anything, he was still covered in lots of sharp objects, "Good morning, Saberwolf. She is happy to see you, yes!" Ruth said in greeting.

I was astounded at first, until I remembered that he had also been nice to Cessily from the Hellions, and to Megan from the Paragons. He must have had a thing for girls. Either that, or the people who taught him had also passed on the impression that he had to treat girls better than guys.

Eddie stepped forward and took off into the air with a booming step, "Whoo! Moment of truth! Ladies and gentleman, are you ready!?" He exclaimed as he shot into the air before propelling himself downward, stopping just short of touching the ground, Mission Impossible-style, "I said, are!? You!? Ready!?" He cut a flip for style points and lunged over at Hisako to grab her shoulders and shake her, "It's winning time! Are you ready!?"

Hisako's voice reverberated with every sudden jerk she received, "I've been ready, now get off of me already!" She said, managing to shove Eddie off of herself.

Eddie just laughed out loud. He clearly felt good today. And why not? This was the closest he had ever felt to being the one thing he wanted to be – one of the X-Men, "Dude! Are you ready? It's time to become the most badass kids at school!"

I wished I could have shared the feeling with him. On any other day, I probably would have been right there in his face, getting hyped and screaming right along with him. That is not what I did.

In a much more reserved manner than expected by the others, given the circumstances, I gave my answer, "I mean... we're going in there either way, so let's just get it done."

Underwhelming, to say the least.

Everyone was silent at first, as if they didn't know how to process something about what I'd said. I didn't get it. It wasn't like I said something to rile anyone up. Never one to bite his tongue, Eddie thankfully let me know what the problem was.

"'Just get it done'?" Eddie parroted, as though it didn't make sense that I wasn't pumped, "What's going on with you?" He asked me, seeing that I was less than enthused. We had a legitimate chance to win the whole thing, and I was miles away, "What happened to 'war-time general' Bellamy? We need that guy this time. This is it, man!"

"I'm still that guy!" I shouted, thumping myself hard on the chest, "I'm a stallion! I should be owned by a goddamn Middle Eastern sheik."

Eddie scoffed, clearly trying to get a rise out of me. It worked, "You were until yesterday, when Gambit hit you in the head and you remembered you were-."

I stopped him before he could finish, "If you say 'scared of the Danger Room,' you'd better remember I can hit a moving target," I said. Flying wasn't going to save him if that came out of his mouth.

Nobody was going to question whether or not I was ready for action. There was no spirit of the timid deer in my soul, and I would not entertain any opinions to the contrary. Compartmentalization was the key. When the lights came on and the main event started, I was pure money. Everyone knew this, except for the ones who didn't care... which was most people, honestly.

Hisako elbowed me from the side and spoke up, "I miss the old Bel. Charged-up gold Bel."

She rhymed. I didn't know why at first. By the time I did, it was too late, "Oh don't you dare-," Eddie was already in on it. To his credit, he followed right up, too quickly for me to shut it down.

Eddie threw an arm over my shoulder and shook me, "Gets on a roll Bel. Unrealistic goals Bel."

Hisako poked me on my other side, "We don't need the gloom and doom Bel. Afraid of the Danger Room Bel," Dear lord, they were taking turns.

"We need the put you in your place Bel. Shoot Hellion in the face Bel," Eddie said.

"Talk ya into buying land Bel. Gets too beat up to stand Bel."

"Lets Armor throw him like him 'woosh' Bel. Everybody's favorite douche Bel."

"I miss the teacher's pet Bel. Only one who can fly a jet Bel."

"The straight ready to strut Bel," Eddie stopped, seemingly at a loss, "Uh... always looking at girls' butts Bel."

That was where Hisako cut the whole thing off, "Annnnd it's dead. You killed it. Way to go, Eddie," It could have only gone on for so long, but even I saw it ending after that.

"What? I thought that was good," Eddie said in his own defense, "I was also running out of stuff to rhyme that fit him. I'm not good at this. Did it work?" He asked as Ruth let out a little giggle as she sat back.

If they had been trying to get me pumped up, they did a terrible job. I cringed through every single one. Poor Kanye West, and those were two words I never thought I would put together, "If I say yes, will you never do it again? That was terrible. We're all worse people for experiencing that."

Eddie stepped back as I peeled his arm from around my neck, "I don't care, as long as it made you want to fight," He told me.

I gave him a look to question the need for him to do such a thing, "That's not hard to do. You didn't have to butcher a song to piss me off," I said.

Ruth stood up from where she had been holding onto Saberwolf around his neck, "Bellamy is always angry, yes."

I rolled my eyes and looked over at Ruth, "I'm never angry at you. You're the only one who never gives me a reason to be mad," I told her before gesturing over to Eddie and Hisako, "Unlike our other jackass teammates, it seems like you actually respect me."

Eddie waved off my complaints with all of the casualness of digging for earwax, "Meh. The squad leader has to deal with that sort of thing. Get used to it," My entire body turned his way so fast, I might have broken reality for a moment, "What? What's with that look?"

I looked around and no one else seemed surprised by what he had said, "Wait, You guys know?"

Hisako shrugged her shoulders, as though none of this were a big deal, which it was to me, "Miss Pryde came to us about it first since you were gone already to get rid of your stupid light bomb. She said she'd track you down later and tell you. It looks like she did."

Indeed, although she hadn't told me that she'd let anyone else know, and that they were okay with the arrangement, "And you're fine with it?"

"Clearly. Seeing as how no one was giving you shit when you got here," Eddie explained, "Well… giving you shit about being the leader, at least."

That was surprising. If anyone had a problem with it, I had figured that it would be Hisako. She had just told me two days ago to my face that she didn't fully trust me. If that were the case, I figured me being in any kind of position of authority above her would have been out of the question.

Eddie gave me a hearty whack on the back to try and better shape me up, "Well, you ready to go, Patton?" He asked.

I was still a mite grumpy. But Eddie did enough to get me to brighten up a bit, "I can't be Patton. My plans don't have enough tanks in them... unless we're counting Hisako," I said.

"Oh, ha-ha. You're not funny," Damn woman. Always no-selling my jokes. That had actually been a decent one in my opinion.

And with that, as a team, we made our way down into the bowels of the Xavier Institute.

Overall Standings

1st Place: New Mutants – 8.9

2nd Place: Hellions – 8.8

3rd Place: Paladins – 8.5

4th Place: Paragons – 8.2

5th Place: Corsairs – 8.1

Everyone heading to the site of the final challenge was able to get a look at the scores.

Our scores during day two's team events hadn't moved our meter one way or the other. We kept the same 8.5 overall score we'd gotten from our efforts on day one, which was still very much something we could work with. The Hellions had passed us with a higher score, but the New Mutants' score had dropped. Even so, we were right there. 0.4 points away from first place.

We were so close, Eddie could taste it. I know he could.

I didn't blame him for being all fired up, but my heart wasn't in it. Not all the way. The night before had stuck with me, and because of how the last day's main event would go down, I couldn't find it in me to put it to the back of my mind.

How could I? For the last event, we would all be stuck inside of the very place that I mistrusted with all of my heart and soul.

I had tried to do something about it, but you can't fight the system. Well, I couldn't. Not when the system had mutants with infinitely more battle and strategy experience than me. I had no idea how far my powers actually allowed me to go. I had been a superhero-in-training for a handful of months. I didn't understand anything about how to get my way living this life.

If I had, there were so many other things I could have done. There were other ways I could have tried to show that the Danger Room was a threat. There were other ways I could have found a way to get the damn thing shut down.

But I didn't, because I didn't think of them. I didn't know.

Didn't. Didn't. Didn't. I hate that word. I always have. It was the most personal version of 'could have, would have, should have'. It was the ultimate word synonymous with failure that could have been avoided. Synonymous with defeat. And of course, that was important.

...You know. Because I was competitive and hated losing at things.

Normally, that would have also included Field Day, but now not so much. Because if losing one's life was on the table, that was a more significant loss.

I was still not happy about doing this, but I was more afraid of not being there and something going wrong. Plus, I couldn't let my team down. They had been salivating at this chance for months.