LEVIATHAN (Part Six)

Going back to the Breakworld and putting the squeeze on the guy in charge didn't do anything. There wasn't any way to stop what they'd set into motion.

The Earth wasn't destroyed. But in the end, it wasn't because we saved it. It wasn't all of us, anyway. Even Earth's Mightiest Heroes, The Avengers™ weren't able to stop Breakworld's weapon before it reached them.

The bullet went straight through the planet and out the other side without touching anything. All thanks to the person that had been stuck inside of it when it had been fired.

Unfortunately, there was no turning it around or catching it after the fact. And off it went, where no one could reach it – with Miss Pryde inside of it. The hero of the day, and yet no one could do anything to help the person that had saved everyone's ass.

Breakworld wasn't destroyed. A conspiracy had led all of this to occur. We were all used by the leader of the resistance against Kruun for the sake of getting Mister Rasputin onto the planet to destroy it. I wished she was still alive. I wished I could give her the beating I wanted to so badly. The crazy bitch actually considered destroying her planet saving it, was willing to let ours be destroyed to accomplish it, and we lost someone precious preventing both.

Speaking of their 'Powerlord', he was deposed by Colossus, but kept in power because no one there wanted to run a whole planet. They would behave because if they didn't, we could always come back and finish the job. After that we all went home with our tails between our legs.

All of the scientists and mystics that knew they owed the X-Men their asses for bailing them out of the end of the world tried to help. All of those big brains, and none of them had any kind of solution to make the bullet stop, get the bullet back, pry it open, nothing. It was a real Humpty-Dumpty situation. All of those minds, and no one had any ideas on how to clean all of this up.

Mister Rasputin was a wreck. A metal shell of a man, if ever there was one. He and Miss Pryde had been together, romantically. They had just been reunited, and just like that they'd been split up again. Mister Summers didn't let anything show, but he was a lot more attentive to Hisako and I in the days after we got back. Believe it or not, Miss Frost actually shed a tear.

Mister Logan sulked around day drinking, at least until Hisako had snapped him out of it and sought him out for some training. Speaking of Hisako, she'd basically put her head down and put her shoulder to the plow. She started training a lot harder on her own. Solo training was all we really could do at this point. The semester was close to an end. Too close to replace the advisor to the Paladins. It was too soon for something like that, so it was for the best.

Again, we all tried to get back to normal, just like the last time some terrible happening had befallen us. This one hit a little bit closer to home than before.

"Yo, brahs," Eddie said, returning to where we were hanging out in the common area on a weekday night. It was me, Eddie, Ben from the Paragons, plus Julian, Santo, and Brian from the Hellions, "Fear not, I've come with a reload of refreshments."

Julian grinned at the sight of the two six-packs dangling from Eddie's hands, liquid sloshing around inside, "Nice, Tancredi," He said, telekinetically pulling a can away for himself, "You stole Logan's beers?"

Eddie faked offense at being accused of theft, "Who says they're his? They could be anyone's," He said in jest before waving it off, "That's the excuse I'm using if he comes after us, since I know you'll all bail on me."

Ignoring, of course, that we were way too young to be drinking in the first place.

Brian let out a laugh, waving off taking a can when one was passed his way, "Running away won't matter," He pointed out, "By the time you realize he's coming, he'll probably have us all ID'd by smell."

A rumbling laugh came from Santo's rocky throat, "God, that's weird to think about," He said, "Speaking of weird, how's it going with that new teammate of yours? She's like Logan, isn't she?"

Julian flicked the tab from the can over at his friend, bouncing it off of his head, "Santo, let the squad stuff go for tonight."

"What? You're more hard up about the squads than anyone?"

"And what just happened that would probably make it a really shitty thing to talk about, genius?"

Julian really wasn't a bad guy. He was just the mutant equivalent of the high school top dog jock. He legitimately thought he was better than everybody else, and went out of his way to prove it. But if you proved you had some spine and some talent, he'd back off, which he did after the whole Danger Room kerfuffle.

Granted, it wouldn't change everything about how he interacted with you, he was still an asshole, but it definitely helped cut down on the confrontations. For instance, I could sit down and drink a beer with the fucker.

While Julian and Brian were admonishing their teammate Santo, Eddie front-flipped over the back of a couch and landed on the cushion, tossing a beer to both me and Ben, "Here you go, glorious leaders. Pop one open and be somebody."

Ben nodded his thanks and did just that. I held the can out in front of me and stared up at the ceiling. I didn't feel much like hanging out, but I didn't want to be a downer.

Eddie gave me a hard pat on the back and a grin before turning his attention to the NBA Playoff game we had all gathered to watch that night. He was trying to keep spirits up on the team, not just here, but otherwise. I had to meet my main man halfway and make an effort to move forward.

"Why don't they tell us about this part?" Eddie asked, popping the tab of his can, "I mean, we always hear about the wins. All the times they stopped Magneto, or went into space and kicked ass-."

"-But the shit like this never came up, did it?" I said, getting a positive hum from Eddie as he started drinking, "When it doesn't go right. When they lose. There's a graveyard on the property for a reason," And we'd been there before, not too long ago.

We didn't have to go there again. Miss Pryde wasn't dead. She was just... lost. Gone. Away from us, somewhere we couldn't go and get her. Not easily.

"You want to talk about it?" Eddie asked, shrugging when I turned his way questioningly, "Hisako already talked to me. Probably didn't want to talk about it anymore than you do, but she did. Blindfold probably read both your minds already, so she knows what you're feeling better than you do."

Well, I had to talk to someone, and the last thing I wanted was some kind of therapy session again with someone like Miss Frost. Eddie was as good as anyone to talk to. Better than almost anyone, actually.

"I lied, Eddie," I eventually told him, opening my own drink, "I said something that I couldn't back up. I said it like it was a fact. Not only was I wrong, I was wrong at the top of my voice."

Eddie scoffed and took a sip of his beer, "Dude, there was literally nothing you could have done. You could have made it there with hours to spare, maybe a whole day. There wasn't a way to stop that thing from firing."

"It didn't sound like there was anything anyone could have done," Ben interjected, sounding a bit pensive at maybe prying into the conversation of others. There was no need. He was sitting right there. If I didn't want him to hear what I had to say, I wouldn't have said it or I would have left first.

"I know. That's what I mean," I said, bringing the fellow squad leader into our talk, "After the Danger Room thing, I always figured that, okay, we weren't ready for any of that. We got caught with our pants down and we got screwed. Fine. Make sure that doesn't happen again."

Everyone remembered. I kind of broke the atmosphere at the ceremony after the Field Day deaths. I said some brash shit. I ran my mouth to get everybody to stand tall, which I felt was fine... just so long as I could back it up. In the end, I didn't.

Replaying everything in my head, the way I always did when I ran a training program or fought, did nothing. No matter how many times I ran it all back, I couldn't think of anything that we could have realistically changed that would have made a difference for the better. It would have been funny if the outcome hadn't been so damned sad.

I took a sip and leaned back again, pressing the can to my head, "We did everything right. At least, it looked like we did. We made it in time. We got to the doomsday weapon, and then... poof," I opened the fist of my free hand, miming the release of dust, "It's like, 'Hey, congratulations! You did it! You still lose though!'"

Frustrating wasn't the word to define it. Maddening was more like it. It almost made you wonder what the point of it was. Leave it to someone else. But then, if everyone thought that way, who would be left to stop all of the disasters?

Speaking of which, "You're coming back, right?" Eddie asked, "The semester's almost over. You've had enough of what this place is really like. No one would blame you if you cut bait and left."

He had to have been kidding. Even Ben looked at him as if to ask if he had been serious. Eddie knew me better than that.

"And leave you guys all alone? No way. You guys need me, and you know it," I said, trying to bring some levity back to the proceedings, "I am the Paladins' guiding light in the dark, literally."

Eddie laughed and threw up the 'too sweet', "No, I know that already. I'm your hype man, remember?" I reciprocated with a 'too sweet' of my own, "You sure you still want to be an X-Man though?"

There was no question to be asked, "Yeah, because the rest of you still do," I told him. As much as it would eat away at me if anyone else got hurt, or worse, died, on my watch, it would tear me up that much more if I found out it happened and I wasn't around to at least try and do something to stop it, "Eddie, I don't care about saving the world. I fight for the people around me. That's what means the world to me."

Some people didn't have the stomach for this place. After the semester ended, a lot of kids probably wouldn't be back. A lot of kids' parents would probably pull them out. I wouldn't be one of them. Not if I could help it. But that's a part of this story for another time.

"Hey, hey, hey, halftime's ending!" Brian's voice called out as everybody else made their way back to the couches to sit down and watch the second half of the game.

"Alright!" Santo stomped over, taking a seat in a reinforced chair for the bigger students, "Hey, Tancredi, beer me!" Eddie grabbed one from one of the six-packs and tossed it over. Santo caught it in his big rocky mitt and crushed it when he grabbed onto it, "...Oops."

Beer dripped out of his hand onto the floor. I felt a smart remark coming on until I was cut off by a roaring voice from deep within the halls of the living areas.

"GRRRRR... WHO THE FUCK DRANK ALL MY GODDAMN BEERS!"

Everyone could feel Mister Logan's question accompanied by the metallic ring of his claws unsheathing. We all scattered like cockroaches when the lights came on. I watched the rest of the game in my room, in fear of having my door carved open by the Wolverine, thirsty for blood and alcohol.

It was a good thing I didn't sleep in the first place. I definitely wouldn't have gotten any sleep that night.