We were not alone.
When I arrived for our next team training session, there was someone else who wasn't our instructor there waiting with us.
He wore a dominantly red-colored version of the X-Men uniform, only without the legs. To be fair, the guy pulled it off, as he looked like a brick-shithouse if I ever saw one. His arms were the size of my head. He had short square-cut black hair and had one of the strongest-looking jawlines I had ever seen.
"Hi," I greeted uncertainly as I approached everyone on the field, "You must be an X-Man I've never met before. Well, I'm Bellamy. You can call me Solaris, I guess."
Nothing wrong with at least trying to be pleasant. He wasn't trying to kill us yet, which put him a notch about a good number of people that I tended to meet these days.
He didn't smile, even though it seemed like he had been trying to, "I am Peter," He said, extending his hand for me to shake. I did, and unsurprisingly he was friggin strong, "And you are the leader of Katya's squad. She told me she had students under her care."
I mouthed the name 'Katya'. My mind had quickly perceived this as a way to refer to Miss Pryde, but it took a moment to wrap my head around. Also, I had no idea who this gigantic guy was. Hisako leaned in and quickly informed me – Miss Pryde's apparent boyfriend, Piotr Rasputin, Colossus, back from the dead, "Oh! Ooh, tough luck, Wing."
"Shut up, Sol," Eddie shot back. Whether it was because I alluded to his crush on Miss Pryde out loud, or because I was rubbing in the fact that whatever nonexistent window he had to win her over was now shut, I didn't know, "We can't all have a chick fall into our laps like some people."
Now that wasn't fair. It wasn't like I did nothing. My sheer animal magnetism apparently appealed to some people, "Don't be that way, bud. Statistically, there should be someone here at this school for everyone, even you. And if not, there's a wide world out there," I offered as good-natured, backhanded advice, setting a hand on his shoulder, "Also, Megan and I ain't dating... yet, at least. I think she's still kind of pissed at me."
Hisako peeled my hand off of the guy that was actually her closest friend at the school and came to his defense, "For getting ripped open like a pinata by that Ord guy?" Peter's jaw clenched tight at the mention of Ord, but he didn't say anything. He must have been just as much of a fan as I was. No one noticed though, feeling more up to busting my chops, "Should we start calling you Señor Piñata? The guy busted you open like he was at a Mexican birthday party."
Let it be noted that Hisako was much better at trash-talking me than Eddie. But nothing was worse than when she got him going and the two of them synched up, "Nah, more like Señor Porkbelly. You got sliced open like a hog."
"Go ahead and change his codename to the Cadaver Kid. He got opened up like a corpse on an episode of CSI."
"Could've used ol' Sol here as one of those anatomically correct dummies in biology. Just put some plastic organs in him to replace the ones he woulda lost."
Only my team could make jokes about me nearly getting murdered by a genocidal alien two whole days after it had happened, "I hate you guys. I just want you to know that. If we have to spar today, I'm wearing one of the two of you out," I said before turning my attention to the quieter of our team members, "Not Ruthie though. She still loves me. And maybe Laura, because she can actually beat me one-on-one clean."
Eddie wiggled his hand in a hot-cold kind of motion, "Eh, I wouldn't call it clean, because she straight-up did you dirty."
"It was a competitive fight!" I yelled back at him, in defense of my ever-growing martial arts ability. However, just for confirmation's sake, I turned to Laura to get it straight from the source herself, "Hey, it was competitive, right?"
She shrugged, not committing to answer either way. Damn. Still no dice. Oh well. At least she was still coming to practices. I'd get her to open up one of these days. It was fun when everybody felt good about speaking their minds around each other, even if that meant that half of them spent a lot of the time cracking jokes on me.
Instead of speaking to us, Laura inquisitively turned her attention to Peter, "Mister Rasputin, do you know where Shadowcat is?" She asked, "Normally she is the very first person at our team meeting points. It is nearly time for the training session to begin."
True enough. Miss Pryde was always there before any of us, no matter how fast I changed after my last class and showed up. Once she mentioned it, we all noticed that it was weird that she wasn't around. She hadn't been injured during her last mission. I'd seen her in the tech class I had that she taught, and she'd been fine.
Peter nodded and walked up closer to us, "Katya sent me here to relay a message," He held up a little device that projected a hologram of the Institute's known layout, "She is hiding somewhere on the school grounds and you are going to find her and contain her. She will not stay in one place, though. At 4 o'clock you begin. You will have two hours before the exercise is called off."
"And I'm guessing Sol can't just shoot her when we find her."
Ruth turned her head toward me, the best she could do to 'look' at me, and shook her head, "No, pardon. She would not recommend it. Detention and after school work would, yes, definitely make Bellamy more vulnerable."
Okay, so I was sure Ruth meant that if I got detention, and-or had to do something after school to clean up whatever mess came with me using my powers, I would probably almost die again. Good to know, "I'm pretty sure I wouldn't hit her anyway," I commented, "...But, the school could use a few more gaping holes in the walls though. I think it'd really let the place breathe, you know?"
Eddie chuckled and threw a friendly arm around my shoulder, pointing off at the main school building, "Put one in the hall. West wing, third floor. I'd enjoy the view since I have to go that way three times every day," He said, making his pitch for anarchy, "We can probably lure Miss Pryde there so you have an excuse to take the shot," He offered up the 'too sweet'.
"Don't you dare," Hisako warned, seeing my hand start to make the reciprocating gesture, "We don't have long before this starts. I'd like to have a plan together before the clock actually starts running,"
Eddie lowered his hand from the 'too sweet' to stroke his chin in thought, "Well it's a big game of hide-and-seek against someone who can move through walls," He observed, "Isn't that kind of unfair against us?"
I rolled my eyes a pointed at the two invaluable resources we had in-house – Ruth and Laura, "We have a telepath and Wolverine's clone with all of his powers. I think we'll be fine," We'd do well enough to put up a fuss, and as long as we could do that, there was no reason we couldn't pass, "Besides, I have an idea."