Chapter 15: A New Trainer

"You wanted to see me Professor?"

"Hmmm, yes, Phillip, please come in, there is a matter which I need to speak to you about."

"Yes sir, I have been thinking about my behavior and I realize what I did was wrong."

"Wrong Phillip? What exactly are you referring to; I wanted to talk to you about your Trainer, Ms. Danvers."

"Uhmm, uh, uhmm, well, I thought you knew about what happened last night. I panicked. I didn't mean to hurt anyone."

"Ahh, yes, I did know about it but I didn't realize you thought it was an issue."

"Well, I did use my powers on my classmates in the Common Room."

"And that Phillip is why you are at this school; to learn how to control your mutant ability."

"But I did it on purpose sir. I just had to get away and I am sorry for my actions and for hurting them."

"No student had to go to the infirmary last night or this morning. If you hurt your classmates last night, chances are you only hurt them emotionally."

"Which I am sorry for, but they were exerting peer pressure on me and I needed to get away."

"And so you felt compelled to turn on your field, expanding it, pushing everyone away from you, so you could exit the Common Room."

"Yes sir."

"And what did your classmates say to you this morning?"

"Nothing sir, other than at class time, I have sort of been avoiding them. Sally is acting pretty strange to me though."

"Sally is acting strange because she over did it last night with keeping her slide field off so much, just as you did a few days ago. For her though, her reaction to the pain is akin to her suffering from a hangover."

"But you helped me that next morning with my pain..."

"And I helped Sally as well, but she is a different person then you. She has had her slide field up non-stop for over three years. Her field is very strong and she is literally not used to being in pain; whereas you suffered quite extensively because of your actions to circumvent your field."

"Yes sir, but she has been through so much..."

"Mentally, yes, she has suffered immensely, but this is a physical pain she is suffering from. She is handling the pain quite well mentally and I am quite sure the hangover like symptoms will abate before dinner. Now, since we are scheduled to have a counseling session this afternoon, perhaps you and I can continue this conversation on your actions last night then? Though I would suggest that maybe your classmates are waiting for you to approach them about last night."

"Yes sir."

"Good Phillip, now if I may, I wanted to talk to you regarding Ms. Danvers. Because of what happened to Rogue as well as what we found out about how Ms. Danvers received her Ms. Marvel powers, I am afraid that Ms. Danvers has regressed some and therefore will not be available to continue being your personal trainer at this time."

"Oh ... is she going to be okay sir?"

"Given time, I think yes, she has been through quite a bit in her life, but yes, the prognosis is good. But in the mean time, I need to assign you to yet another trainer."

"Yes sir."

"Excellent attitude there Phillip; your new trainer will be Logan, who is already in the Danger Room waiting for you to join him."

"Logan sir?"

"Yes, Wolverine."

"But sir..."

"Yes Phillip?"

"I don't want to train under Wolverine. I don't like him. He scares me."

"Yes, well, Logan can be a bit abrasive."

"Abrasive sir, he is outright mean."

"I understand how you feel, but I really think, especially because of what happened last night, Logan will be an ideal trainer for you. Outside of Cyclops, he is the best trainer at the school; his experience is second to none. He will not bite you. He will not purposely hurt you, but he will instruct you to the best of his ability."

"But ... but ... but..."

"No 'buts' Phillip, you will go directly to the Danger Room for your training session with Logan and you will do what you need to in order to learn from him."

"BUT HE IS A KILLER!"

"Yes, he is a killer. But he is not a loose cannon. He does embrace his animal side, so he sees things differently than you or I and yet he does not arbitrarily kill someone walking down the street. For him to kill, someone will have had to threaten him or his family. In case you didn't realize it, we are his family."

"But killing is wrong."

"Yes it is Phillip and yet it happens hundreds of times EVERY day. That is a reality I hope you can accept, because while hiding from the facts of life will shelter you, it will make life that much harder when that shelter fails you. Phillip, look at me ... I can control almost any mind on this planet. I can make Presidents and Prime Ministers dance for me and yet I don't. Why? Because I too strive for a better life, a better society but I do not do so with blinders on. I put students, bearing my name on the front line; to assume that they or whoever they face will treat them with kid gloves is a grave injustice I will not subject them to. Until a true working Utopian society manifests itself on this planet, killing will be a simple fact of life. Now, having said that, holding your self up to higher ideals is very commendable, in fact quite of few of the students and staff here do try to hold themselves up to higher ideals. Try to. Hopefully you won't have to learn what others before you have, having higher ideals and maintaining those higher ideals are two very separate things.

"Now Phillip, Logan is waiting for you in the Danger Room; are you going to accept his training?"

" ... Yes sir."

"Very well, I will see you later this afternoon for our session. Have a good day."

"Thank you, sir."

Phillip played back in his head the conversation he had with the School's Headmaster as he walked, a tad slowly, towards the Danger Room.

'I said it, but I guess I did not convey it strong enough to the Professor of just how scared of Wolverine I am. Then there was that fiasco from last night. What the hell did Sally mean by she needed me? Did she need me there to hold her hand? Did she want to be my girlfriend? Is she so jealous of Rusty being with Amara that she wants to do something with me? What?!? I had to get out of there. I couldn't breathe; I was so scared; just like I am scared of Wolverine. Well, not as much. Last night, I can't remember ever being as scared as I was then. Today, I am so scared that if Wolverine says, 'boo' to me I will probably piss my pants, but I trust the Professor when he says Wolverine won't turn me into shish kebob with those claws of his. Still, I think I am scared of going to the Danger Room because all I can envision is Wolverine yelling at me the way he did that time in the kitchen. And then he continued yelling at me, embarrassing me in front of my classmates. Shit I fucked that up last night. They all probably hate me now. I just couldn't let them see me down there and I don't trust Stacy not to make me a gibbering mess on the floor with her 'magic' touch. Damn, that did feel good though. I almost wish she would just walk up to me and do it anyway. The release... '

Phillip stopped in front of the Danger Room main entrance and started breathing deeply to get his pounding heart to slow down. Leaning from one foot to the next while shaking the other with much antsy, dreading about what was waiting for him behind the door. Was Wolverine standing there naked like the time in the kitchen or was he in his X-Man uniform, with its mask that added to the man's presence?

Feeling a nudge in the back of his head, Phillip entered the oversized training room.

Wolverine was sitting in the middle of the room Indian style, hands resting on his knees, head leaning forward, parallel to the floor. He was neither naked or in his uniform. Instead Phillip saw that he was wearing cowboy boots, jeans and a wife beater t-shirt.

Cautiously, Phillip walked towards Wolverine, ready to jet at the least provocation. Phillip was sure Wolverine wasn't sleeping, was he meditating? After standing a bit, not saying a word, Phillip decided to sit down across from Wolverine, but not too close. Phillip knew about meditation and was surprised that Wolverine, if that is what he was doing, would do such a thing. While waiting, Philip did not succeed in getting into a meditative state, but he was able to fairly relax much more then he thought possibly.

"A true samurai, back in the day, practiced not only his mastery of the sword, but also aristocratic pastimes like calligraphy, poetry, archery and music."

Phillip was again surprised when he didn't run away or even jerk at the first words out of Wolverine's mouth.

"Meditation was another skill samurai's practiced. I have had samurai training. I can't spout poetry or paint for crap. I am good enough to kill with a bow, just a bit better with a katana, but I can meditate with the best of them. Ultimately, I rejected my samurai training, because I am an animal. But I am one patient fucking animal. Do you understand me kid?"

'What was he talking about?' "Uh, no sir. I mean, you just said you are a patient animal?"

"Bingo kid. I am going to tell you what to do; if I have to I will physically show you. I will be telling you the same shit over and over again until you get it or you quit. Do you understand me now kid?"

"Yes sir."

"Sir? I am not in any fucking military. I am no longer an officer. You talk to me, and you need to call me something, you call me Wolverine. Got that?"

There was the aggressiveness that Phillip was expecting, but it only came across as a low growl, not screaming in Phillip's ear.

"Yes ... Wolverine."

"Good, Chuck wants you to try something different today. You generate a field, right kid?"

"Yes ... Wolverine."

"Ok, Chuck wants you to see how far you can extend that field from you, so sitting there, I want you to try to get your field to touch me."

'This is surreal, why isn't he screaming at me? Why isn't he being mean? I don't understand this... '

Phillip easily summoned his field, raised his right arm and mentally pushed the field away from his hand. After only a few seconds he started grunting as he strained to push his field.

"Stop."

Phillip immediately started heaving his chest as he started sucking in air.

"That's not good kid. You really need to learn to breathe when you exert yourself. Give yourself a heart attack if you don't watch it. Chuck said nothing about your breathing; we will have to work on that too. So, can you tell how far from your body your field is?

'Again, no yelling, just that eerily quiet voice of his. Wait a minute, he hasn't even opened his eyes yet. Is he still meditating? Can you talk and meditate at the same time?'

"Yes si ... I mean Wolverine, I can feel my field and how far it is from my body. I can also feel with the field, whatever it is touching."

"Look at me kid, instead of pushing your whole field, push a smaller part of it. Like this..." sounded as Wolverine extended the middle claw on the back of his right hand. "Like a blade or a lance, whatever, visualize, expand your will on it."

The field that Phillip generated was similar to Sally in that they both almost appeared invisible. Almost. Phillip found that with his field, if he squinted his eyes, the field was easier to notice. Squinting, he did as he was told and visualized a spear forming with his field, away from his raised right hand.

'There! It is going farther from my hand. Ugh, this hurts to do.'

"Stop."

Again Phillip allowed his body to start rapidly sucking in fresh air.

"Okay kid. that time your field reached about a foot and a half from your hand; let's take this a step further. Next, visualize the extension of your field real thin, real thin, maybe even a molecule thick."

"A molecule thick, what good would that do me?"

"Ever heard of the rapiers from Toledo? No? Thought not. First, that is Toledo Spain, not fucking Ohio. They built their rapiers to be real thin. Bend the blade and have it touch its hilt and not break, and still be strong enough to cut someone's head off. Same principle, but what helps you, is the thinner the expansion the less strain it should be to you, the farther you would be able to reach. Understand now?"

"Yeah, I mean yes."

"Good. Keep it thin, touch my hand."

'Molecule? There is no fucking way I can make something a molecule in thickness. Shit, he still hasn't lowered his hand or even opened his eyes. Wait, his nose has been twitching the entire time. What does he think this is, Bewitched? Man that movie sucked. Okay, let's do this.'

Phillip thought he might be able to make an extension of his field a millimeter thick. He knew what that looked like. Raising his right hand again, he pointed his right index finger and mentally felt the field around the tip of the finger and gingerly, starting pushing, visualizing, he pushed for just a millimeter or so.

'Shit, the bastard was right, I can feel it stretching away from my finger. It is moving real easy. Damn, spoke too soon.'

Squinting, Phillip saw that the tip of his field was less than a foot from Wolverine's unmoving raised hand, the strain was getting to Phillip and he started grunting while leaning forward; his extended right arm felt like a lead weight.

Logan could smell better then he could see, so well could he smell that without even looking, he knew that Phillip had almost succeeded in touching his hand by extending his field, but he knew Phillip was faltering by the straining Phillip was doing and his not breathing regularly. Leaning forward, Logan was able to touch the tip of Phillip's field. Phillip felt the touch, jerked his head up and then collapsed onto his side, again expelling the breath he was holding and sucking in new air.

Logan didn't congratulate Phillip; he simply waited for him to catch his breath and then proceeded to have Phillip run laps around the Danger Room. When Phillip started to wane after only five laps, Wolverine joined him in the laps to pace Phillip.

Though Phillip was sucking air like a vacuum, he just had to ask Wolverine: "How can you run in those things?"

Wolverine thought about ignoring his student, but was too proud of his buffalo skinned boots. "What? My shit kickers? Damn comfortable."

"But, the heel?"

"What about heel? Don't use heel when running. Use heel, run flat foot. Not good."

Phillip wasn't sure how long or far they ran, but when Wolverine finally said, "Stop", he immediately collapsed on the floor fighting for every breath he took. Suddenly he was yanked off the steel floor.

"WALK. Take even breaths. Hand on hips or behind head."

Phillip noticed while fighting off light headedness that Wolverine, of course, didn't even look like he was breathing. Wolverine worked Phillip for another hour, having him do varies cardio exercises like eight count body builders and jumping rope.

When Phillip came back from a water break, Wolverine was standing back in the middle of the Danger Room. While not eager for more exercises, Phillip knew that the sooner they started the next part of the training the sooner they would be done.

"Okay kid, fun time. Real simple, make a blade or spear, whatever and come at me. Am gonna be nice and give you the chance to rough me up some."

"Uhmm, Wolverine, I don't want to fight you. I don't want you to hurt me."

"Naw kid, not a fight, I am going to stand here and fend you off, but not swing back. You couldn't take one of my punches and I don't think you want me to bitch slap you."

"But I don't want to fight. Period." Phillip implored his trainer.

"Coward?"

Simple and to the point. Phillip paused before answering. Looking around he finally looked at his feet.

"Yeah. I don't believe in fighting."

"And what did you do about bullies? Get beat up?"

"Yeah but then I out smarted them. Made sure they couldn't get at me. Stayed one step ahead of them."

"And what are you going to do when someone comes after you cause you are a mutant? Mutants get beat and die all the time, normally cause they don't want to use their ability or don't want to fight. Fact there."

"Then I guess I die."

Grunting. "Do you want to die kid?" Like some anime ninja, Wolverine jumped high in the air towards Phillip, arms spread and primed to slam into Phillip.

"NO!" Screaming Phillip raised his arms in front of him while closing his eyes, not wanting to see the strike coming.

"Put your arms down kid."

Opening one eye to make sure what happened was what he thought he heard happen except that instead of slamming into Phillip, Wolverine was again sitting Indian style a few feet in front of him. Phillip didn't even realize that he had also raised his field when he raised his arms. Smiling to himself, feeling that area of his brain that controlled the field, he switched it off as he lowered his arms.

"What the fuck did you do that for?"

"You was spewing about dying, just making sure you meant what you said. Relax kid, I ain't gonna beat you up. I didn't that morning in the kitchen, hell I didn't even touch you."

"But you scared the shit out of me!"

Laughing, "Yeah, I did that. Was a riot. You gonna be around me kid, don't make yourself an easy mark."

"I had been in the school, what TWO days? There is shit going on around here that I still don't have a clue about."

"Then you better learn to roll with the punches. So why are you against fighting?"

Phillip paused, looked Wolverine straight in the eyes and still wasn't sure if he should give the full answer or just a short one. The full one explained his thoughts on the matter completely, but he was pretty sure Wolverine didn't give a flying fuck about what he thought.

"Because I don't think it is ... fair. In this day and age, I don't think 'might makes right' and that is what all of you super heroes stand for."

"What do the super villains stand for? Those punks like Doom and Magneto who want to force their will on the entire planet?"

"Same thing, they think their might makes their views right, which I think is bullshit."

"So how do you stop them?"

"I don't know anymore. Before I realized I was a mutant, I supported the government Sentinel program. I thought it was the government's job to protect us from whack jobs like Magneto. Now I don't know."

"Need to get an answer kid, cause right now you have the same chance of the Sentinels coming after you as going after Doom or Maggie."

"I realize that. One more thing that has really fucked me over in the last few weeks."

"So, sure you don't want to die?"

"Everybody dies..."

"Cool, meaning of life."

"What?"

"Everyone dies, so what does your life matter? Why not be happy being a sheep, led to slaughter?"

"Again, I don't know any more. I had an idea but..."

"And that idea was life was fair and anything else was bullshit."

"Yeah, something like that."

"Only now you realize, life isn't fair, because if it was, you would be normal, not a mutie."

Startled by his observation, Phillip just stared at Wolverine. Who cared nothing of the staring.

"So what the fuck was that racket last night about?"

"Uhh? Uh, what racket?"

"In the Common Room?"

"You heard about that?"

"Duh! No shit sherlock."

"I don't want to talk about it."

"Bullshit. Talk."

"Who the fuck do think you are? Who..."

Phillip did not notice when Wolverine pulled out and lit the cigar, which he did do. Instead he only observed it when a large puff of cigar smoke was blown in his face, causing him to gag. After he stopped coughing, he looked down at Wolverine with red eyes.

"Now, why did you upset everyone?"

Glaring at Wolverine, wishing he could take the smugness off of the dwarf's face.

'Well, maybe not a dwarf, but he is damn short and barrel shaped.'

"I felt like they were pressuring me into doing something that I didn't want to do so I panicked and ran."

"Over a game of Longshot?"

"Yeah, Longshot. I can't play that game."

"Why the fuck not? Queer?"

"No I am not queer, I just can't play that game."

"Don't like showing your thang then."

"Correct."

"Even though you liked Stacy's touch."

"I loved Stacy's touch. And that scares the living hell out of me."

For the second time in seconds, Phillip saw Wolverine's head jerk back with a winced facial expression as if saying, 'are you off your rocker?'.

"You like it so much it scares you? Why?"

"Because I can see myself getting addicted to her touch."

"So find another girl to take care of your willie for you."

"I can't do that either."

"Let me guess, against your morals to have a girl get your rocks off?"

"I wish. I just can't." After seeing Wolverine make that same face a third time, Phillip decided to try to explain further. "I ... I am not man enough for a girl."

"Bullshit, there are plenty of girls who fall all over prissy boys like you."

"I am not prissy, I am just not man enough for any woman."

"Kid, you really don't know girls that well, do you." And then he grasped the situation. "You are talking about your package, aren't you kid."

"Yeah, not man enough."

"Again, bullshit kid. You really don't know girls. You have fingers, you have a mouth and if it is so small then you can rub a crotch the same way two lezzies do."

"And I keep telling you I am not man enough for a woman to want me."

"Where the fuck did you get such a stupid notion from kid?"

"Oh, I don't know, how about school? How about all of the teasing that I got from the GIRLS at that school when they found out exactly how small I was?"

"Well, you aren't at that school, you are here. There is plenty who are willing here. Girls and boys. You need to get laid and you need to get an idea just what you are supposed to do with a girl."

"It is not that easy!"

"Bullshit. If it is not that easy, then you are making it hard! I have yet to see a guy or a girl that Jubilee wouldn't fuck. Fucking little nympho."

"I can't stand to be laughed at again. I just can't", Phillip pleaded.

"You have been with the Queen, right?"

"The Queen? Ms. Frost? Yeah, well sort of, my first night here she sucked me off. Other than teasing me and everyone else around, she hasn't started anything else."

"Have you?"

"Started anything? With her? I couldn't do that."

"Someday, you will learn that you can. There are a lot of horny bitches here. Especially Sally, she is always in heat, but right now she doesn't play, but there are plenty of others who will. Just have to ask them."

"Just ask them? That is crazy! What happened to courting a girl, letting them decide if they want to be with you?"

"That is not here. Between Chuck and the Queenie, the girls all understand if they want to rut, more power to them. Court'n? Not here, because only a couple girlies want a designated partner. Most just want to get their rocks off, just like you."

"Can I ask you a question?"

"We are talking, are we?"

"Promise you won't hit me?"

"Kid."

"I was told that you ... you swing both ways?"

"So?"

"So?!?"

"Sex is sex kid. Doesn't matter who is yanking my chain and if I am going nail a frail in the ass, what is the difference from nailing a dude?"

"But that is a guy? That is..."

"Queer? Fuck that noise. Again, sex is sex. Swallowing male jizz is no different than lapping up female jizz, except normally the dude comes a lot quicker than the frail, HA HA HA."

"But, that isn't macho!"

"Macho? Macho is for morons. Macho isn't a real man."

"What about chivalry?"

"Like so many things in life, I say, 'to each, their own'."

"But..."