**You might have to go to war,
shoot a gun, kill a nun
You might have to go to war
when you get out of school**
“Fuck, shit, fuck…” He was running, dodging the hail of bullets raining down on him, his boots kicking small clouds of dust and sliding over the concrete rubble. He could hear soft whirr when he stepped over invisible threshold, telltale sign that the minigun was already targeting him. Sound of approaching grenade covered momentarily everything, then huge explosion sent him sailing through the air. He smacked against a sturdy brick wall, and for a moment it felt like he’d stuck to it. Then the Mother Nature remembered him and sprinkled the magic dust of gravity on him, and he slid down, falling to a heap on the ground. He could still hear whirring, but he wasn’t sure if it was the minigun, or just his skull ringing from the impact.
He pushed on his hands and knees, groaning and spitting out blood and dust, shaking the sharp bits of masonry from his hair and face before they fell in to his eyes and tried to scan his surroundings.
He spotted Pjotr, not too far from where he was hunched against a pile of bricks. Colossus had armored up, usually wise move, but not so hot idea when Kitty was hiding so close to him. Bullets could ricochet from the Russian to her if they weren’t careful. He’d have to remember to talk about it with them later.
He saw Bobby. Kid was battling against some gadget that looked like a crossbreed of giant lighter and a harvester.
“Who the fuck programmed this fucking scenario?” He murmured before launching himself towards the Iceman. He heavily doubted the professor’s idea of these training sessions was to get the whole fucking team killed.
Between him and Bobby it was relatively easy to get rid of the flame-throwing abomination, and he was able to continue his survey. The last member of the team. The incredible, elusive Rogue that he had last seen when the scenario started. He couldn’t smell blood. That was a good sign.
He gave Bobby, Pjotr and Kitty some pointers of what they were expected to accomplish before he left them and went to find her. It wasn’t an easy task. Living nearly three years next to her had made her practically invisible for him. He could barely tell what she smelt like, let alone track her scent from the horrid mess the training bots had left at their wake.
Finally he spotted her from amidst of rubble and debris and let out string of rather colorful curses.
“Freeze scenario!” He bellowed over the noise.
Silence fell as the bots stopped firing. He could smell ice and snow, and thin layer of frost started forming over every surface.
“Not you, Iceman! Kitty, phase in to med lab and tell Jean she’s going to get a customer!”
**You're gonna have to deal with stress,
deal with stress, deal with stress
You're gonna be a giant mess
when you get back from the war**
He paced back and forth, raking his fingers through his abused hairdo for the hundredth time within ten minutes. There hadn’t been blood, but that meant jack shit. He had had to dig her up from under pile of fucking rocks! Heavy slabs that crumbled under his grip, raining dust on her pale face, then it had taken literally eternity before she had taken the first, ragged breath of air. Nothing had looked or felt broken, and when she had opened her eyes the glare she had thrown at him had been pure fire, but that didn’t rule out internal damage.
“You don’t fucking stop weeping for fallen ones! You keep going!” She had hissed, thrown back the words he had used on several occasions when one of the team had gotten ‘killed’ and the rest of them had gathered around ‘the dead’ one, rather than kept going.
“This is different. You’re really hurt,” he had grunted, trying to figure out the best way to move her to the med lab without jostling her too much on the way. There was always the possibility of spinal injury.
“Fucking shit…” He slouched on to a chair in front of the glass sliding doors, rubbing his face tiredly. Sand and dust were gritting between his teeth and blood and shit on his face had already partially dried, forming a sticky layer that started to peel off.
“You better be alright kid, so that I can beat the crap out of you for scaring me…”
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