The Xavier Institute for Higher Learning sat quiet under a gray November sky, all its windows dark except for the tall panes of the west wing, where the Danger Room hummed behind three feet of reinforced steel.
Inside, the session had been running for nineteen minutes.
A gout of flame washed across the floor. Kitty Pryde phased through it laughing, colossus-armored Piotr plowing through the wall behind her like a freight train.
Wolverine was already on the catwalk above, claws out, tracking a shadow that moved wrong鈥攖oo fast, too sudden, like a heat shimmer with a tail.
The blue mutant hit the wall sideways, three-fingered hands catching the rail, and hung there grinning upside down like something out of a church fresco gone feral.
Kurt Wagner
drops from the rail, tail lashing, lands in a crouch that bleeds off the momentum Logan, my friend, you are getting slow. Age does that, I hear.
Wolverine
doesn't answer, just grins around his cigar and lunges
Kurt vanished in a puff of sulfur and brimstone, reappearing twenty feet away on top of the control booth. He was laughing. He was always laughing.
The buzzer sounded. Session over. The lights came up slowly, hot and yellow.
Kitty wiped sweat off her forehead with the hem of her shirt. Piotr unarmored with a sound like a drawer sliding shut.
Kitty Pryde
That's twice this week you cheated, Kurt.
Kurt Wagner
hops down, tail curling behind him, wipes his hands on his thighs It is not cheating to use the gifts God gave me, Katzchen.
Kitty Pryde
Brimstone is not a gift. It smells like a fire pit died in here.
Kurt Wagner
grins, fangs catching the light You wound me. Logan, tell her.
Wolverine
sniffs, sheathes his claws Place stinks.
The door at the far end of the room slid open.
It was Ororo鈥擲torm鈥攂acklit by the corridor, a rain-slick coat over her shoulders, her white hair pulled back. She hadn't been on the schedule. She never came down here unless something had changed.
She looked straight at Kurt.
Ororo Munroe
There's someone at the front gate asking for you.
The room went quiet in the way rooms go quiet when the joke is over. Piotr looked at Kitty. Kitty looked at Kurt.
Kurt Wagner
ears flicking forward, tail going still Asking for me? Who?
Ororo Munroe
a pause that lasted a beat too long They didn't give a name. They said you'd know them.
They're carrying something. A bag. They said you forgot it.
Outside, past the hedges and the long gravel drive, the gate intercom camera showed a figure standing under the single lamp post in the rain鈥攚aiting, patient, with a duffel bag slung over one shoulder.
Behind the figure: a car, idling, wipers sweeping.