We all made our way into Xavier's office from the hangar. The entire walk to his office Scott was giving me a look, but I ignored it, more interested in what Xavier was going to say. Once we reached his office, Xavier moved behind the desk while Scott and Ororo took up either side of him. Laura, Logan, and I stood in front of them.
"Logan, I understand your desire for revenge for your clone..." Xavier began, but Logan cut him off.
"Daughter," he said firmly.
Glancing at Laura, I could see a small smile form on her face.
"Yes, my mistake. Your daughter, but you endanger a student in your pursuit of that revenge."
"He did fine. Not even a scratch on him." Logan said.
"That is not the point Logan. He is untrained and you put him in danger." Xavier said.
"And you shouldn't have agreed to go with him, Casper. You don't have any formal training, you're not ready for missions." Scott chimed in.
Shrugging my shoulders I said "I wanted to help Laura get some closure. Plus, it's not like I got hurt and I figured out a new facet of my power, so all in all I think it was a win."
"Be that as it may, you will be let off with a warning. If anything like this happens again, you will be grounded and barred from Danger Room sessions." Xavier said.
"If you're mad that I went into the field without training, how is cutting me off from training going to help that?" I asked with a scoff. I appreciated that Xavier had put a roof over my head and got me everything I needed, but I wasn't going to be another one of the yes-men that surrounded him.
Xavier sighed and said, "The point is that you will learn to think before going out into a dangerous situation with little training." He looked up at me from his chair, and I could see that he'd been worried about me. "I do not want to have to deal with the death of my student."
I ran my hand through my hair, sighing as I took a moment to reconsider my actions. I'd been acting like I was invincible, just focusing on getting as much power as I could, and I was letting actions from the comics warp my perception of Xavier. Regardless of what he may or may not do, he did care for his students and was just worried about me.
"I didn't mean to worry you, but I don't regret helping Laura."
"Then let's make it so next time, you can be better prepared to help her. Instead of being barred from the Danger Room, you'll just help Ororo with tending to the grounds," Xavier conceded a small smile on his face.
I nodded my head, accepting the lifeline he was throwing me. I didn't want to destroy my relationship with Xavier or something as small as this. "Laura, I'll see you later. Logan, it was fun." I said and walked out of the room.
Walking into my room, I found Bobby sitting awake on his bed.
"Dude, what happened? Scott was ranting about you going on an unsanctioned mission or something."
'I just want to go to sleep.'
----
POV Change Third Person
Laura walked out of the room soon after Casper did, heading to a room Logan described the location of to her. It was directly next door to his room, so he could be close if she needed her.
Scott was also sent out. Despite being the leader of the team at the moment, the conversation that would follow was not one he would get to be privy to, despite his protests.
"What's the real problem here, Chuck? I go on missions all the time. We handled it and got back okay." Logan said.
"The issue is you brought a student who is new along. Despite that, it's not the main problem I have. Do you really think bringing Casper while you kill people is a good course of action? We have some idea of how he's spent his life, but not everything. Exposing him to killing isn't wise." Xavier said.
"Not everyone's life was a good one. Some people don't have the same view you do. You don't want the kid to be a killer like me, fine. But you don't really get to make that choice." Logan said.
"We are not trying to make that choice Logan, but we shouldn't expose the children to more violence than necessary. They will already have to deal with struggle in their lives, let's not add to it." Ororo said.
"We've always disagreed on this Logan and I doubt we're going to reach any kind of satisfactory conclusion tonight. There's one more thing. Fury contacted me today. You're daughter broke into SHIELD to find out where you were." Xavier said.
"Ha, kid already takes after me." Logan barked.
"I'm sure in more ways than one. Regardless, he wants her in his custody." Xavier said.
Logan's face turned serious as he said "He's not taking her Chuck. Patch is going to have to go through me to get her."
"Our relationship with SHIELD is tenuous at best, but I will let him know. I assume he will just want an update on his database for mutants." Xavier said.
Logan nodded and turned, walking out of the room while thinking 'Sorry kid, looks like you're on SHIELD's radar now. I owe you one.'
----
POV Casper
I ended up just telling Bobby I had to help Logan out with something. He bugged me for details, but I just said Logan told me not to tell anyone and eventually he left it at that. I went to sleep for the night, mentally drained from everything that had happened.
Waking up the next day, I was interrupted before I could go to breakfast by Logan.
"We need to talk," he said.
"Here?" I asked.
"No, follow me," he said.
I followed him to another side of the room, following him into a door where I found a mostly barren room and Laura waiting.
"Morning," I said to her.
"Morning" She replied, somewhat unsurely.
"So after yesterday Chuck and I talked. Someone" he said, looking at Laura who didn't react, "broke into SHIELD to find out where I was, so Fury wanted the culprit."
"I doubt you're giving him Laura, so what's this about?" I asked. Looking at Laura out of the corner of my eye, I could see her trying to hide the worried look that had appeared when Logan said that.
"You're right, I'm not giving him Laura. However, he and Chuck have a deal where if we need something from him, Chuck has to update his mutant records, which means you two are going to end up on SHIELD's radar." Logan explained.
'SHIELD knowing about my existence is annoying, but not that bad. Xavier doesn't know about the full extent of my abilities, although eventually I'll use them in public and everyone will discover I have more than one power. Even when they find out, they'll never know exactly what powers I have. It's annoying, but not that detrimental yet.'
"And what exactly is SHIELD?" I asked, realizing I shouldn't know about them.
"Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement, and Logistics Division. They monitor the world, but recently they've been getting involved in stuff that the regular government can't take care of, like the Fantastic Four and us." Logan explained.
"So basically, they're overseers. Annoying, but not all that detrimental yet." I said.
"It's not something to be all that worried about yet. Even if Chuck updates the database, you haven't had all that much formal training so they won't know very much about your capabilities for long."
"Alright. If that's all, I'm going to grab breakfast, you coming Laura?" I asked.
"Go with him," Logan said to Laura, who looked to be hesitating. She nodded and got up, following me as we walked out of her room and towards the kitchen.
When we got to the kitchen I found that the rest of the students were already there eating.
"What's she doing here?" was the immediate question by Kitty.
"She's staying here. Laura, that's everyone. Everyone that's Laura." I said sitting down in a chair while Laura moved and sat down next to me.
"The Professor let her stay here after she attacked us?" Rogue asked.
"Guess so," I said, passing Laura some eggs which she took.
'I wonder how long it will take for them to blow up. Their pride is definitely hurt all getting knocked out by one girl, especially one their age. Acting nonchalant is fun, kind of wish Laura would talk more though.'
"I'm gonna go get ready for school," Kurt said, teleporting out of the room. The others made similar excuses and left, with Bobby being the last to leave, but he too left.
"I wouldn't worry too much about it," I commented.
"It makes sense. I attacked them, they're wary." Laura spoke for the first time this morning.
"Yeah, but I still wouldn't worry about it. Are you joining the Danger Room session today?" I asked.
Laura nodded. "Logan said I'm doing something special, but he didn't tell me what."
'Huh, I wonder what he's having her do. She's way ahead of everyone else in terms of both combat experience and combat ability.'
Breakfast passed and Laura walked back to her room while I went outside to the grounds and laid down in the grass. Laying on the ground, I rested one arm behind my head while the other touched the ground, leaning against a tree.
Concentrating, I felt my hand get lighter again, but not all that much.
'I should be able to phase through things if I can lower my density enough. This way I can practice without anyone suspecting anything.'
I leaned against that tree for hours, just practicing manipulating the density of my hand. My hand got to the point that it was extremely light and I even got one finger to sink into the ground for a second, but I couldn't get the rest of my hand to follow it.
After that I switched, moving on to trying to increase the density of my body. Spending hours using my hand again, I began to increase its density, smaller increases at first before getting to the bigger increases.
I was still practicing when I saw the students coming back from school. Getting up, I made my way inside since our Danger Room session was supposed to be right after they got back.
They all entered from the garage as I got inside.
"Hey Casper, today's your first official Danger Room session, you excited?" Kurt asked.
"Yeah, wonder what it's going to be like," I said.
They went to their rooms and put their bags away before coming back and we walked down to the underground floor. There were two locker rooms, one for girls and one for guys in which everyone could get changed into their suits.
Holding up the spandex in front of me, I put it back in the drawer.
"Not getting dressed?" Bobby asked.
"I think I'll pass. Spandex isn't my thing and I'll be armored up anyway, so it doesn't matter what I wear." I said.
We walked into the Danger Room to find two people waiting for us: Logan and Laura.
"She's joining our Danger Room sessions too?" Scott asked.
"Nope Slim, she's teaching whoever wants her to," Logan said with a grin.
"Why is she teaching us? She's our age." Scott asked.
"And she took all of you down in no time flat. Frankly, she doesn't need the training you guys are at yet, so in the meantime, I think her skills are better put to use teaching." Logan said.
"I'll pass. I think I should learn from you Logan." Scott said.
The others similarly agreed.
"I'll go with Laura. Started teaching me on the plane, might as well keep with it." I said.
"Seems you just won yourself some one-on-one instruction. Laura, take him over there and work with him." Logan said, indicating a place a little ways away from everyone else.
She nodded and walked to where he indicated, with me following.
"You know you didn't have to come with me. Logan was going to have me do his course if no one volunteered." Laura said.
"While I'm sure you'd have fun with that, I'm a novice and could use the instruction. I know firsthand how good you are, so everyone else is missing out." I said.
Laura nodded and we spent the next couple hours with her instructing me on the martial arts she thought would fit me best. It was apparently focused on quick takedowns while having a good variety of lethal moves, which was another reason I was glad I went with Laura. Logan would have to teach in a non-lethal manner since none of them would kill, but Laura and I didn't have that limitation.
Laura showed me various moves by demonstrating them on me and then allowing me to try the same move on her in slow motion. After some time practicing, she had me try them in an actual spar with her. The control of my body was showing its benefits again. Watching Laura demonstrate the moves, I could mentally command my body to follow the same actions based on what I had seen. It let me pick up the moves quickly and advance. It was almost like Taskmaster's ability, but not as perfect. It still took me some tries to execute the move properly, while Taskmaster could copy an entire martial art instantly.
The end of our session ended up becoming a spar, as I fought with Laura without absorbing material and she didn't use her claws. I had made a lot of progress in one day with my advantage, but I wasn't anywhere near as good as Laura yet, so I still got my ass handed to me.
With the session done for the day, everyone went to shower and change.
After I had gotten dressed, Bobby came in.
"Hey can I talk to you?" he asked.
"Yeah, what's up?" I asked.
"Everyone's kind of worried about Laura, so I thought I'd see what you thought about her," Bobby said simply.
"They're all that worried about what her?" I asked.
"Not everyone is at the same level of worry. Scott's the most vocal in opposition to her being here, while the rest are just somewhat worried. Jean thinks we should take the chance to get to know her, so she'll probably reach out, but the rest are taking a wait-and-see approach."
"Well, I'm not. Scott is just mad that his pride got hurt. I get why everyone else is wary, but it doesn't mean I'm going to be." I said.
"Alright man, just checking in. I'll give her a shot, we haven't been here that long so it's not like I'm surprised she beat me up," Bobby said, moving over to his bed and lying down.
"Thanks, man, I appreciate it."
'I can get why they're worried, beyond their hurt pride. She did come and attack them in the dead of night, but Xavier preached forgiveness. How are they going to move past the potential outcry and attacks on mutants when humans find out about them if they can't move past an attack by one of their own?'
Leaving the room, I walked down the hall, searching for Jean. Eventually, I found her sitting on a couch reading a book.
'Alright, let's see if this will work.'
Walking towards her, I tripped, falling forward. She couldn't react fast enough with her telekinesis to catch me, so she reached out and held me up.
"Thanks, Jean, don't know what I tripped on," I said, absorbing her power.
"No problem Casper, just be careful," she said, returning to her seat.
"I will be," I said, rubbing the back of my head. Walking past her, I looped around and made my way back to my room, entering to find Bobby asleep. Now that I had absorbed Jean's power I could feel random thoughts from him, but nothing cohesive.
With him asleep, I picked up a paper clip and sat down on my bed. Concentrating on it, the paper clip began to rise into the air shakily.
Messing around with the paper clip for a little while to get a feel for telekinesis, I eventually put it back in my drawer and laid down to go to sleep. I felt something strange, so looking down I noticed that my finger was inside of my bed.
Pulling it out, I focused and my finger returned to normal density.
'Must've gotten mixed up with the telekinesis.' I thought as I closed my eyes and fell asleep for the night.
I got rid of the Phoenix being absorbed if he absorbed Jean beacuse I didn't like it. Instead, only when she actually starts using the Phoenix is there a chance he could absorb it, which I'm not sure I'll do. It wasn't really used and I feel like it's not worth it when he could get stronger on his own. Plus it's a lot of energy, so he'd lose control.