Spring Break

OK, basically, this was originally going to be half of a chapter in Never Trained. Oops, ok, split the chapter. Wait, no, I've got too much going on. I've got most of the X-men and half of the New Mutants hunting a killer mutant in Kansas. I've got the other half of them and all of "new guys" (you know, by spring break, you aren't the bloody new guys any more). And that is on TOP of getting Laura's head bolted on right.

New story time. Sorry to everyone who's been waiting. If you've got a friend who is watching Never Trained, and not watching me, tell them this is up. I'll probably get bored and spam some folks. :P

For first time readers, this is part of a storyline covering multiple stand alones and an ongoing piece. For those want a timeline to get all the needed background:
Graduation - They Never Trained Me (1 - 7) - Home to Meet the Family - Staying Home This Holiday - New Years New Beginnings - Never Trained (8 - 16) - this

--- Day zero, Friday afternoon

Laura hated commercial flights. She'd done it before. Fortunately, the adamntium coating had only been on her claws, she hadn't had the full procedure yet. A doctor's note that the Professor had arranged took care of the security checkpoint. But even with a note the airport security had taken their time with Logan. He'd overloaded their metal detector, sending the computer that processed the sensor into a blind panic then shutdown. He had complained extensively about the strip search.

The two of them, Remy and Kurt had been met by one of the Professor's business contacts. The man had identified himself as Akira Tanaka. She'd had a good snort at that- he might as well have called himself John Doe. He also said that the package they had sent ahead had arrived with their seals intact.

She was tired, but she didn't want to sleep. She couldn't sleep, she was running on enough caffeine to kill a small dog. She didn't dare fall asleep on the airplane. She couldn't risk another dream, not in a crowd like that. She was feeling a little punchy though, as they reached the parking lot. Kurt had gone up front with their guide, with Remy and Logan in the middle seat. That left her alone in the back, and that was fine. They had a few hours of driving ahead. She leaned her head against the window as the vehicle started, listening to the vibration. This machine was good, it wasn't broken.

She fell asleep before they were on the highway.

--- Day one, Saturday

Kitty took yet another head count while they waited for Rogue and Sam to get here with their rentals. Velocity could handle everyone and their baggage, but that was about it.

They would be doing Spring Break in St Augustine Florida. It had beaches and history and peace and quiet- the real insanity was a few hundred miles south. There had been some complaining about that, and Rogue had listened to every counter proposal from the students. There was a counter for every one of those, ranging from price to "What would the Professor say if yah powers were on MTV? He would not say 'cool', would he?."

Jubilee came over, looking around. "So, this is it?"

It was a little airport, admittedly, but it was big enough to handle either Blackbird so long as they were light enough to land vertically.

"Don't worry. All airports are boring." Kitty looked up at startled shouts and a small bang. "Unless Tabitha lights them ON FIRE! NO HORSING AROUND!"

---sb1

They'd been breathing pure oxygen to prevent the bends during their jump. Logan knew it wouldn't do long term harm to them, but he'd had a bad case of decompression sickness once, it left him crippled and curled up in a ball for most of a week. He didn't know what do other than this. He had to get her away from everyone else, and just let her run and scream and rage if she needed. It had been less than a year since Laura had come to the Institute, but she had come so far. She'd seemed like the rest of the kids, just more aggressive maybe. He'd been terrified that she'd panicked like that, particularly since she'd been asleep. If only he'd been there, maybe he could have reached her while she fought, or at wear her out.

He was pretty sure he was doing at best an ok job as a parent, but Kitty and Jean had told him he was doing fine when ever he got in a funk about it. Damnit, he was Wolverine, he was practically immortal, he must have been a parent before. He had asked Rogue about what she'd seen, and gotten no answer; Rogue and Chuck were the only ones who had seen his nightmares and his daughter's, they could judge. He knew the dreams had been horrifying, but she was insisting on beating herself up, isolating herself. She was always her harshest judge, she'd assign herself punishment if she felt it was needed, but in some ways she was almost worse off now than when she'd come to the Institute. He felt like he was watching a train wreck and not able to do anything about it. He had to wonder if there was something that HYDRA had planted in her head, something with a timer that would destroy her if she'd run away. Or would make her return, like his own chip had.

He was stirred from his revere by a familiar voice. "Vhe are approaching the point you marked. Vhat vhas the altitude again?"

Kurt was at the controls of the brand new Blackbird-2, bigger and even more high tech than the original. This model was wider in the fuselage and the canards were broader. The engines had been moved into the wings and were decidedly more advanced than what was on Blackbird-1. They had more space, much more, they could take the X-van in the back if they needed to, which put an end to needing to rent vans. (The insurance alone would pay for the new engines to go into Blackbird-1-they'd bought a lot of rental vans.) The cost had in maximum speed and ceiling. Blackbird-2 would never be able to the sub-orbital hops they could do with the first one; they'd had to trade the ability to get a larger team to a crisis against the ability to be anywhere in the world within two hours from the time they were wheels up.

"You heard me right. Forty thousand." Logan grinned inside his oxygen mask as Laura gave him a thumbs up. They'd done this from twenty five, and Laura had said she'd done thirty five. He knew the dangers, most people who did this did so for combat, but he was willing; she was always grinning and calm after skydiving. Grinning and calm was what she hadn't been recently.

Kurt glanced over at his co-pilot. Remy had checked out on Blackbird despite the controls beyond what was found on light prop aircraft, between them they felt they could manage this new aircraft. Remy'd done a lot of risky stuff, but jumping from a perfectly good aircraft was insane. That Rogue enjoyed it scared him a little. But this was a special kind of nuts. This high up, Logan and Laura were going to need air bottles to not pass out, and they would have frostbite, it was a given. The Cajun shook his head and shrugged. "Okay den, Ah'll bring a band for da funeral."

Laura gave a last check that her leg bag was properly attached- it carried everything she'd want on the ground. The pressure dropped in the cargo bay. The condition light switched from red to green. She wasn't fully aware of Kurt telling them he'd see them in a few days. She waddle-ran down the ramp, taking a breath from her air tank as she stepped off into space. She felt the caress of the engine wash while she made slow motion backflip. She saw Logan leaving the aircraft and continued her flip. As soon as she was belly to the earth, she spread her arms and legs, feeling the thin air grabbing her. She felt a leaf on the wind.

She brought her right hand over, pressing the switch strapped to her left wrist. Her goggles lit up dimly, just enough to see the data. These were a new toy from Forge, GPS and inertial relative to the initial point, compass, and altimeter. Inside of her air mask, she smiled, a broad, carefree grin. She was laughing as she watch the ground get closer. Here she was always free from herself, from everything. Under HYDRA, free fall had been one of the few times when she hadn't been monitored nor been on-mission; she'd been able to almost relax for a few minutes.

She could override the automated release, even dump her chute, go into free fall. She was confident that she could survive a fall from angels-forty, but it would take a while and it would hurt. Sometimes she wondered how it would feel. But she also knew that there would be a lot of people yelling at her. She wanted to close her eyes, but she settled for stretching in the air. She could feel weight leaving her, leaving her mind.

The goggles gave her a small icon, showing her the planned LZ. She tracked to the side, bringing herself onto a better course to hit it. She might overshoot a little, but she could always open early, or just walk- it was lots and lots of empty desert. She'd picked that spot because satellite imagery showed there was survey marker and some stones they could stash the flight gear at.

---sb1

Charles Xavier breathed out slowly. This was the first time in a long time he'd been truly alone. He hadn't realized just how accustomed to all of them he was. The quiet was loud.

It was also startling to him to realize just how totally the Institute had become his life. His peers, his fellows- they were scattered. He had a few friends, most of them researchers around the globe. He wasn't sure what he was going to do with a week to himself. He'd already concluded that television was a vast wasteland other than the occasional Star Trek rerun and the History Channel. At least he had the library.

He also had a project. He was trying to locate a mutant who was a physician. A family practitioner would be excellent, a trauma surgeon even better. Then somehow he'd try to lure them away from their practice.

---sb1

Logan looked at altimeter and swore. He'd checked her pack after she rigged it, it was fine. She should be opening. The plan was to open at fifteen hundred. The ground was getting close. He overrode the altimeter release on his chute- he'd open it himself or the emergency release would pop his reserve up at 600. Stubborn little... Come on kid. Come on. COME ON! "LAURA!"

As soon as he saw her drogue open, he released his, feeling the main slither from his pack. He grunted as the increased air resistance grabbed him, jamming up hard on his body. He glanced up, all the cells inflated, his chute was good, toggles were in his hands. These new style parachutes were a great improvement on the round ones he had shadowy memories of using in the Second World War.

Laura felt the tension come off the line to her pack as she flared her chute. She could have hit and rolled, but she stalled out her glide, letting her land on her feet with a few jogged steps. Quickly, she collapsed her chute, pulling the canopy in to her, wrapping it in the lines before the slight desert breeze could grab it and her. She shrugged out of the harness, then unzipped the thermal jumpsuit. In just a few minutes, she had her flight gear packaged to be stashed. They'd already treated sponges with the scent of fox urine to repel rodents. She pulled on the ruck she'd packed before they left. Most of the weight was water- she had a three liter bladder in there, and four bottles, all intact despite the pressure changes and the impact. It was great, big, dry desert. She slid on her sunglasses, then her hat. Sunburn still hurt; her cheeks burned from frost bite.

She could hear it in his steps. Logan was annoyed. He was probably going to yell at her for opening low. She didn't look back at him, she was watching the rattlesnake that was watching her. It probably wasn't used to having mutants fall out of the sky.

"What was that?"

"That was a fully controlled low altitude deployment of a ram air parachute using a covert penetration profile suitable for use in a hilly or urban environment." The reptile tasted the air, only its tongue and eyes moving. It had seen her, but it hadn't tightened its coil or sounded a warning. It was in a comfortable place, for now, it would move if there was a predator or if the rock got to hot for it handle. She wasn't a predator, just something new and odd and not threatening.

He snorted. "Good. I'm damn glad that's what it was, because it looked like you were trying to kill yourself until about 800 feet." He looked at her, the outburst burned out of his system. She was right- do that at night, and you would be almost invisible if the horizon was high. She was smiling, watching the snake. She wasn't really paying attention to him. She was smiling. "Your comm was on the whole way down. Hard to be stealthy when the whole world can listen in on you."

She'd been laughing. Not just the little snicker or snort she usually used. It had been a giggle. He'd only heard her really laugh few times. He'd never heard her giggle before. He hadn't been sure she could. He'd been terrified as she blown past fifteen hundred feet, giggling like Jubilee on a sugar high.

Seven and a half vertical miles of giggling Laura.

---sb1

Rogue made the head count this time. Ray, Sam, Syrin... There was Tabitha. Two instructors and fourteen students. And two rental vans. Yes, the students were trained to save the world. Yes, most of them were only a year or two younger than her. But yes, she was their "responsible adult"; she still felt guilty about how Laura's incident had been handled by her. And the kids were wound tight- the more outgoing of them could be a problem the way they were right now.

She picked up her bag. Remy had called and left her voice mail- they'd dropped off their passengers and orbited long enough to make sure both parachutes had been seen.

She looked at the red brick building before her. "Pirate Haus Inn and Hostel...." This was either a stroke of genius or stupidity. She took a deep breath, walking in, knowing that her brood would follow.

"Arrr, kin Ah help yah, lass?"

"Hi, Ah'm Rogue. With tha Xavier Institute."

"Is this everyone?" The man looked dubious. A caller who'd been willing to book three months in advance, for the whole place for a boarding school had been interesting. But this wasn't quite as many people as he'd been led to expect.

"For now. We'll have two more joinin' us in an few hours, and others who might be able to make it if a problem can be resolved 'for tha end of tha week." The place had looked like a cross between a dorm and a bed and breakfast when she'd researched it.

Magnus felt the mass of metal push against him, grunting. Rain and hail bounced off his armour. He was soaked to the skin, his hair plastered down like a skull cap. He leaned into the wind, pushing back and down. The pickup dug into the ground with a spray of mud. It still enough momentum to twist about, presenting the rear end to him.

Jamie and Hank moved into the sheltering lee of the old Chevy. Smaller debris spinked off the metal body. Bobby was doing his best to push the temperature at this level as low as possible. Jean had Blackbird in an orbit at the top of the funnel cloud, Scott and Amara trying to heat it. Normally a tornado was cold at the top and warm at the bottom; if they could disrupt that enough, then maybe Storm could collapse the funnel cloud.

Magnus reached his hand to a length of of corrugated steel, probably part of a barn. Once he had control of it he used it to swat a swarm of debris aside. Right now, he was just trying to keep Storm from getting hit. Boots digging into the mud, he made a dash to the truck, hoping it would protect him enough so he could focus on defending others.

At a shout from Beast, he slid feet first- too close, a length of lumber missed his head by less than a meter. Magnus' boots banged into the bumper of the truck. The oldest member of the Xavier Institute glanced up and started to chuckle, one of those rueful laughs found only when nothing was going according to plan.

The bumper sticker next to his foot proudly proclaimed 'Youth is for the weak'.

---Author's notes:
So... where to start. Pirate Haus is real. Not quite this big. Used without permission, but it is a good place to stay.

DISCLAIMER: Many of the above activities are extremely dangerous and if you do them wrong, you will either die or beg to be allowed to die. Extremely high parachute jumps may result in the bends and other forms of barotrauma, along with frost bite, hypothermia and all of the unhappiness that results when something small and squishy (you) hits something big and hard (the Earth) at over a hundred miles an hour. There is more than one reason to call it "terminal velocity".

I know, in Evo, it was implied Laura had the full bone lacing- Dr Risman didn't have all the facts. Not by a long shot. Mad scientist with delusions of motherhood. Hell, she called Logan "Weapon X", like he was the project, not just one of it's products.