Chapter 10: The Power

Phillip went into the kitchen, looking for a snack and a drink before he had to meet Ann Marie in the Danger Room for a training session. He had just finished a different kind of training session with the Professor. The Professor had scanned Phillip mentally again and when they were done the Professor said that he put some blockers in Phillip's mind so that he wouldn't feel so much pain upon manifestation of his powers. He told Phillip that he expected him to do the hard work required to get his mutant ability completely active. Phillip didn't like the sound of it and definitely did not trust any 'blockers' that may or may not be in his mind.

After snagging some of Mrs. Veneer's granola and a juice, Phillip made his way up to his room, where he was surprised to see Sally sitting quietly on her bed.

"Oh ... uh, jeez, sorry about that Sally, do you want me to come back later?"

Sally was still clothed in her oversized, multilayer outfit from earlier, simply laid back on her bed, rolling over to face the armoire away from Phillip's side of the room. Phillip quickly changed into his skin tight training outfit, that, while being very comfortable, fitted too snugly in all the wrong places to let Phillip feel truly comfortable in it. After velcro'ing his gym shoes, he stood ready to quietly exit his shared room. He looked at Sally's backside as he reached the door and stopped. His words came out slowly and unsure.

"Sally, if you want me to find another room, I will understand ... I am sorry for you, I haven't had to experience anything like you have, but I am glad you were able to share that part with me. And the class ... I, uh, I guess I will see you later." And then Phillip quietly exited.

Phillip almost got lost getting to the Danger Room, he remembered to take the elevator and using his thumb print was able to access the secured level below. But he turned right out of the elevator and didn't realize his mistake until he entered the hallway to the medical center. When he got to the Danger Room's main entrance, he paused and forced himself to take two deep breaths, to help his pounding heart. He didn't know what was on the other side of the door and he could admit to himself that whatever was behind the door scared him.

The door slide open at his touch on the keypad and he saw a room that was bigger than any gymnasium he had been in before. Inside were Phillip's classmate and five staffers. Teresa was literally screaming through the air and a man with the angel wings was flying after her, Stacy and Rachael were practicing some form of martial arts with a purple haired oriental female in a skimpy outfit whose name escaped Phillip. Then there was the human giant, Peter, using some form of weight machine, lifting, lifting a lot. On the far side room the tall black staffer with the M tattooed on his face (Lucas?) was staring at Illyana, not saying anything. Why, Phillip didn't have a clue.

Leaning against the wall ten feet away from the door was Ann Marie, who was assigned to be his training partner. Phillip had met her briefly last night and was able to put her name and face to memory. She had medium length auburn-ish hair feathered back on the side, with a wide white streak going through the entire length of her head in the middle. To Phillip, it was obvious that she was an X-man, because the outfit that she wore was personalized to her, black, mid-thigh boots, with a pair of black tights tucked in them and a green tunic style jacket, emerald green with white trim and a matching scarf. What stood out about Ann Marie were her gloved hands, which he noticed at the dinner table last night. She wore long opera style black gloves that reached to her elbows, which Phillip could see because her green sleeves with white trim at the end, were very wide and hung down to her wrists.

"So there ya' are, sugah." That was the other thing he had noticed about Ann Marie, the thick Southern accent she emphasized on a few words.

"Yeah, sorry about that. After my session with the Professor, I grabbed a snack from Mrs. Veneer and then changed. I will try to be quicker next time."

"Don't ya' worry about it, sugah. Prof X will let me know if you are running late." And then she gave Phillip a sly smile and a wink.

"So..."

"Yeah, sugah?"

"What are we exactly going to do here? I am sort of new at this and my powers haven't manifested completely. Are we going to do some stretching? Martial Arts training? I am a Brown Belt in Aikido, already."

"Nah' none of that. I talked with Prof X last night and he wants me to concentrate on getting ya' to manifest that ability of yours."

"Ok, uhm ... how do we do that?"

"Oh, that is the easy thing. You create a field of some sort, right?"

"Uhmm, well, yes, well, at least I think so. But I don't like to do it, gives me a headache."

"Right, Prof X told me about that and said that he was gonna block some of that pain, yeah?"

"Yeah, but I am not sure if it will work or not."

"Heh, first rule o thumb at this school sugah. 'Always trust the Professor'."

"Always, huh?"

"Always. Now, bring ya' hands so I can punch at 'em."

"Like this, like a boxer's training partner? Hey, are you going to punch my hands?"

"Exactly like that sugah. And yeah, I'm gonna swing at ya and you get to stop me."

"WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! You are going to punch my hands?"

"Sure enough."

"BUT ... but what I am supposed to do? Stand here and take it? For all I know you can punch through walls!"

"Oh, I can definitely punch thru walls, sugah. I will be pulling my punches. You need to block my punches with your field. Ready?"

"NO! No. How am I supposed to block with my field?"

"Hah, concentrate. Visualize it. Make it happen. Hands up."

"Ok, but I don't kn... <whack> Oh, SHIT that hurt. FUCK!"

"It's okay, sugah. I pulled that punch. Now hands up again. Concentrate."

"Concentrate? Concen... <whack> FUCK! Now my other hand is killing me."

"CONCENTRATE! Not on the pain. Concentrate on blocking me. Ya block me."

Phillip knew he was getting mad, but he didn't care, this was crazy, standing here letting a mutant whose hands feel like she is hitting him with a steel bar punch his hands. Fine. She wanted him to concentrate, he would concentrate, he would block her punches. Or break his hand trying. She pulled her right fist back to her ear and with a smile, let the fist fly at Phillip. Phillip screamed and threw up his left hand to block it. What happened confused him. Ann Marie's head jerked back like it had been hit by an oncoming car and then her body followed suit, flying backwards twenty feet, with Ann Marie's body flipping and her landing hard on her chest.

"What the fuck?" And then Phillip's eyes rolled into the back of his head and he passed out.

Phillip woke and the first thing he felt was his head throbbing massively. Opening his eyes and he saw the beautiful red head from dinner last night. 'What was her name'?

Smiling, she reached down and caressed the left side of his head, 'Jean' Phillip heard and then he closed his eyes and passed out again.

Something nasty under his nose woke him up next; Phillip opened his eyes while moving his left hand to brush whatever was offending his sense of smell away. "Ugh, nasty."

"Why yes, I can be, but not for you dear."

Phillip focused his eyes and saw a massive expanse of cleavage in his face with blond hair in his periphery vision. Looking up into her eyes, he saw it was Nurse Prachett.

"So, are you ready to wake up? Dinner is about to be served upstairs."

Phillip took stock in himself. His head was throbbing and he was sure he could go back to sleep if that nasty smell would dissipate. "Uh, I am not really hungry right now."

"Headache?"

"Yeah, doozy of a one, but at least it is a dull one." And Phillip laid his head back down, as much has he wanted to watch the delicious Nurse Prachett move about in her extremely tight and skimpy nurse's outfit, his head hurt too much.

"And why are you glad it is a dull one?" Knowing the answer, Nurse Prachett teased.

"Well, because ... because..." There was no way Phillip was going to tell her that the sharp headaches hurt so much that Phillip would end up in the fetal position, crying for the pain to stop. "Because it hurts, real bad." That was enough of a truth for Phillip to not be a lie.

"Oh, you poor dear. Here, the Professor told me to give you some an acetaminophen for the pain."

Raising his head, Phillip quaffed the water offered by Nurse Prachett after swallowing the two pills. "Uhmm, does the Professor know what happened to me? I thought he put pain blockerssss..." Phillip couldn't take the room swirling around and laid his head back on the pillow, looked up at Nurse Prachett hovering over him like an angel, smiling as beautiful as only an angel can and then saw his vision go blurry as his eyes rolled into the back of his skull.

Phillip awoke later, he had no clue how much time had passed, but all of the lights in the medical center were dimmed very low and he was covered with a heavy blanket to keep him warm in the cool room. He looked around the room, gingerly, testing for pain, he raised his head and then his whole torso after he felt no pain.

"Glad to see you back from la la land."

Jerking to look behind him, Phillip saw, Rachael sitting on a stool, arms crossed, back against the wall, staring at him.

"That would be me. How do you feel?"

Phillip paused and took inventory of his body..."I feel, I feel pretty good. How long was I out?"

Standing up to move next to him, "Good, that is what the Professor expected."

"Speaking of the Professor, what happened? His blocks... ?"

"Oh, they worked, as much as you let them."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he wasn't expecting you to summon the full force of your power the first time out. He thought you would just summon enough power to block Rogue's blows and Rogue was supposed to hit you just a bit harder each time to make you summon more and more of the power as the exercise went on."