X-men: Bast Ch. 04

As the four finished up their various tasks and chores, Scott came storming into the Hanger. He was scowling deeply and the icy glare he swept over his four team mates was visible even through his ruby glasses.

"What thehell was that about?" he demanded. "Where do you all get off taking the Blackbird by yourselves?"

Before anyone else could make a sarcastic remark, Storm answered, "There was a riot near Manhattan. It was becoming very ugly, and there was a possibility that people would be hurt and Mutants would be persecuted. We had to quell it."

"A riot?" Scott sneered. "Oh, this was theperfect team to bring to take care of a situation like that, Storm. You took the half trained and practically useless woman who refuses to listen to orders and the two biggest hot-heads on the team. You could've gotten everyone killed!"

"I don't listen toyour orders," Kia clarified icily.

Ororo almost took a step back in shock, her eyes wide. Scott had recently begun to question and criticize her methods, undermining her authority when he felt his way was best. But he had never openly attacked her like this before.

"Ya got a problem, Cyke?" Logan growled softly. "Maybe ya oughta go take it up with the rioters we took care of. I'm sure they'd be glad to take some pipes and chairs to yer face. Fix it right up for ya."

"I have a problem with loose cannons like you going on missions without someone to watch them. Especially missions to keep the peace!" Scott snapped.

Logan growled and clenched his hands into fists.

Kia sighed and crossed her arms. "Yeah, because you're beingso peaceful right now, Scott."

"Cool it down, Scott," Rogue agreed. "It ain't like we was hurtin' anything. We took care of the riot and kept a lotta dangerous folk from hurting innocent people. What're ya getting upset about? Everythin' went fine."

"It doesn't matter if things went 'fine'," Scott scowled. "Storm acted without thought for the consequences of taking such a poorly suited team into action. When we need to take someone down we'll call you two in, but otherwise you need to stay out of the way!"

Logan snarled and took a step forward, but Rogue grabbed him by the collar of his coat and yanked him back.

"That's enough!" Ororo declared loudly. She shook her head, still unsure of where these personal attacks were coming from, but she wasn't about to let Scott cow her in front of her teammates.

The Goddess was out.

"Scott, I can appreciate you viewing this situation from an angle we didn't think of, but we did what had to be done. If we hadn't acted, many would have been hurt, and lives would have been lost. Inaction would have only served to cause more harm. And questioning my judgment in such a hostile and, worse,public manner is not going to help anyone here. You're out of line,way out of line, and I don't appreciate it."

Logan grinned widely, waggling his eyebrows at Scott from behind Storm's shoulder. Kia couldn't help but smile slyly as well. Rogue just looked annoyed at Scott's hostility.

Scott opened his mouth to snap at his team mates again, but he never got the words out.

Scott,the Professor spoke into all of their minds.You are misplacing blame here.I ordered the these four to deploy, not Ororo. . You do not give her enough credit. Besides, I accompanied them and advised them on what I felt was best. Ororo handled the situations quite well. I thought this would be a good team to handle the situation, and I was right. If you wish to dispute the decision further you may come speak with me. Otherwise, stop upsetting everyone, please.

"Count on it," Scott muttered aloud. He shot the four Mutants one last glare before stomping out the hanger.

"What a loser," Kia said, raising her voice so Scott would catch her words before the door shut behind him.

"Sometimes I wonder what is happening with him," Ororo shook her head.

"Somethin' crawled up his ass 'n died, that's what happened," Rogue replied.

"Fuckin' tool," Logan growled.

Kia glanced at her friends and stepped away, walking toward the exit. "I have some papers to grade. See you later, everyone."

"Not so fast," Ororo laughed, the incident behind her for the moment. "You have to see Hank first."

"No I don't," Kia complained. "I'm fine!"

"It's team policy," Ororo insisted. She gabbed Kia by the wrist and began to half-drag her toward the infirmary. "Don't worry, I'll be getting an examination while I'm there, too," she assured Kia.

"Yeah, but your 'examination' will be a lot more fun!" Kia protested.

Rogue laughed loudly as the two women left the hangar. She turned to Logan and tilted her head. "Well, the day's half gone. Not much else t'do. Wanna go blow off steam in the Danger Room, Sugah?"

"Sure," Logan shrugged, then smirked lightly. "Maybe we can set up a Cyclops simulation to beat on."

***

Logan woke late the next day. Having already missed breakfast, he decided to just give up on eating for the moment and instead did his morning workout. The large weight bench in one corner of his room was loaded down by the time he finished with it a half-hour later. His weight lifting done, he proceeded to stretch and wind down, going through a series of positions and stances he had learned long ago that helped to strengthen muscles and keep the body limber and flexible.

Though he had learned it, Logan wasn't a regular practitioner of Yoga. He knew, however, that some of the stances and stretches could do wonders for keeping the body in peak condition. The more often one stretched, the easier it was to maintain that flexibility and warmness. Logan had become proficient enough that he no longer had to warm up or prepare for combat or other rigorous action; he could start right into things cold turkey and be at his full range of movement and flexibility. His healing factor helped him with this.

Relaxed and wound down from the earlier intense workout, Logan settled into a kneeling position and began to meditate. Few people around him knew just how regularly he tried to exercise his spiritual side. It was a necessity; if not for that touch of spirituality and honor in his life, he would have been that much closer to losing himself to the beast within.

Long had he struggled with his inner nature. It wasn't entirely clear what spawned the animalistic aspect of his being; perhaps it was a side effect of his mutation. It would certainly make sense, given his feral senses and claws. Or perhaps it was a mental condition brought on by some trauma or experience in the murky mystery of his past. Either way, Logan had a feral, bestial side buried within, a primitive killing instinct that turned him into a savage berserker when angered or injured. It was something he had struggled with as long as he could remember. A number of occasions the animal side of his soul had wrest control from him and sent him on a killing spree. As such, one of Logan's deepest fear was that he would become a danger to those he around him he loved. And so he struggled, day in and out, to find a sense of balance. He would never completely banish the beast within; he knew that. But to be able to channel his berserk instincts into times of battle and danger while keeping them shut off in his every day personal life...that was the balance he so desperately sought. It was an uphill battle, but over the years, considerable progress had been made. He hadn't lost control of himself in quite some time, and he was secretly quite proud of that.

Meditation could be an intense and exhausting thing when done in certain manors. Zen was particularly taxing. When Logan finished an hour later, his body was covered in sweat, almost more so than when he had worked out with the heavy weights.

He rose and showered, then stepped out into the Manor. It was just past one, and things were quiet. Most of his friends on the team would be occupied at the moment. He decided it was finally time to tend to the growling of his stomach. He went to the kitchen and made himself a rather large sandwich heaped high with every lunch meat he could find, and grabbed one of the beer that had been stocked in the fridge specifically for him. He smiled to himself. It was good to be home. At home, people always remembered to stock your favorite brew.

He stepped out onto one of the decks behind the manor and plopped into a chair, propping his feet up on the railing overlooking the gardens below. He slid the tip of one claw out and flicked the bottle cap off before taking a sip. He took a bite from his sandwich and watched the day slowly, lazily rolling past. It wasn't often things were so peaceful here at Xavier's school. For once, there was no chaos, no drama, no attack or threat of extinction or global genocide. It was kind of a nice change, really.

Logan tensed slightly as he caught the scent of something approaching. He sniffed softly. Something...reptilian? His ears picked up an almost imperceptible clicking sound coming from behind his shoulder. On the other side of the roof, slowly cresting the rise and coming down the other side toward him. He glanced up out the corner of his eye, then relaxed.

One of the students came crawling down the sharply sloping roof, face leading the way, on all fours. A long, thick tail waved out behind him. He clamored and climbed, sharp, slightly hooked fingertips clinging to the sturdy shingles of the Mansion roof. He plopped down onto the deck and hesitated a moment, watching Logan with slitted eyes.

He stepped closer and Logan turned to acknowledge him. He was covered in a thin layer of green scales, gleaming like emeralds in the sunlight, clean looking and close linking. The Mutant teen's face was slightly elongated like the snout of a lizard, but aside from his slitted eyes, his facial features were otherwise still relatively human. A mop of thick brown hair hung down to frame his green, scaled face. Two bumps extended from his temples, likely a pair of horns growing in. His thick, reptilian tail swished rhythmically behind him, creating a soft breeze.

"Hi. Um...you're Logan...Wolverine...right? A lot of my friends have talked about you."

Logan nodded. "Shouldn't ya be in class, squirt?"

"It's my lunch period. I, uh, didn't feel much like eating. I've been trying to practice my climbing. It's not a power, it's just something I can do now that I have these," the teen explained, flexing the short hooked claws on his hands and feet.

"Nice claws," Logan smirked. His claws exploded from the back of his hands with their characteristic 'snikt', causing the lizard boy to jump. "Got some o' my own."

"Wow, that's cool," the boy said. "Is that your power?"

"Somethin' like that," Logan replied. "What's yer name, kid?"

"Robby," the boy replied.

"Robby," Logan repeated. "Ya got a codename? Anythin' like that?"

"Umm...my friends just call me Robby...or, well, Dragon Boy."

"Dragon Boy," Logan chuckled. "Nice."

"Or Liz," Robby added, looking down and kicking at nothing-in-particular.

"Liz?" Logan asked.

"Y'know...Lizard?"

"Ah," Logan smiled. "Yer new. I don't know everyone, but I'd know yer scent."

"Yeah," Robby nodded. He sat down on the chair beside Logan's, his tail curling off to the side. "I just came here. I wasn't like this when I got here."

"How's it treatin' ya? The lizard thing, I mean."

Robby shrugged and blinked his slitted eyes at Logan. "I dunno. It's not as bad as I thought it would be. I figurd it would hurt and it would mean I...well, I dunno...that I wouldn't be me, you know?"

Logan nodded and sipped at his beer. "That's what most kids yer age thing. It ain't the end o' the world, bein' a Mutant an' all. Just somethin' else life throws at ya to deal with."

"At least you look human," Robby pointed out.

Logan smirked and looked away. "Looks don't count much fer havin' a lot o' humanity kid. You'll learn that."

Robby fell silent for a few moments and mulled over Logan's words.

"You'll do fine here," Logan nodded to him as he bit into his sandwich. "Just do what yer told and try not t' cause trouble."

"You sound like my Dad. Before he threw me out, I mean," Robby said.

"I ain't yer pop," Logan chuckled. "An' trust me, if ya screw up, I ain't throwin' ya out. None of us will. I'll just have to smack some sense into ya is all."

Robbie laughed and stood up. "You're kinda cool. My friends all told me you were. I didn't believe them. I figured you'd just be mean."

"I am mean," Logan said seriously.

The bell rang to announce classes were shifting. Logan hated that bell. Got on his damn nerves.

"I gotta get going. Classes are back in in five minutes."

"Yep," Logan nodded, tipping his beer toward the youngster. "Oh, hey. What's yer power? Ya said climbin' wasn't. So what is?"

Robbie hesitated, then cleared his throat. He opened his mouth and exhaled a large gout of white fire. "I found that out when I burped a few weeks back and almost set my classroom on fire."

Logan laughed softly and grinned at the reptilian Mutant. "See ya around, Kid. An' stay away from the beans."

End Chapter 4

*

Sorry about the lack of sex in this chapter, there'll be more coming up.

I've always thought that the struggle between Mutants and Humans was one of the integral aspects of the X-men. It's been seen and emphasized time and time again throughout the comics, in various ways. Let's face it; racism and prejudice is a very prevalent thing in the world. If people can hate so strongly for someone having different color skin, then how easy would it be for those same people (and maybe some others, as well) to find fault in a person with scales? A third eye? Several other limbs? I think it's a logical situation, and I wanted to touch on that in this story, as one of the most realistic aspects of X-men lore. Expect to see this theme again.

Chapter 5 is next, and will prove to be packed with action of all kinds ;)

Please send all questions/comments/critiques to the address in my profile.