The Same Old Lessons (Hellion)

What had she said to Logan when he had first asked her to join his new school? On that day as she kicked him around the sparring mats, chatting telepathically all the while.

Ah, that was it. That a school wasn’t for her. That they needed to move forward and that a school was just moving backwards instead, the exact opposite. Of course, that had been when she had a choice in the matter, but now Betsy found herself at the school regardless of which direction it was moving in. She was hardly the only Utopia resident to wash up there, of course. But neither that nor her changed view on X-Force and its activities made any difference when it came to feeling… out of place there. Not, of course, that it was anything anyone else had said or thought that made her feel that way. Betsy was not a woman who cared what the rest of the world thought about her, nor had she been even before her little change of looks.

But she felt out of place and restless with it, and she knew why. On Utopia, she had known why she was there. She had been a warrior, defending it from attack. She had been responsible for security, Scott’s spy and spycatcher both, roles that her powers and talents made her ideally suited for. She had spent time on teams with Scott and Ororo among others, going on missions to the outside world. And, of course, she had been on X-Force, using her skills to eliminate potential and real threats to their kind. Here, here she was just Betsy Braddock and it left her far too much time to think. Refusing to grow rusty, she pushed herself harder than ever in her training, honing her edge, making herself faster and stronger and better than ever.

Next time she took on Daredevil – if there was a next time – she was going to demonstrate which of them was the superior fighter.

Her.

But there was only so much training and honing that even she could stomach and it was a fundamentally selfish agenda. Betsy longed to be doing something productive, something to help her species. And her mind had eventually, reluctantly settled on teaching. It made sense, in a way. She had skills and knowledge that few of the others did, both as a telepath and telekinetic and as a warrior. There was a lot that she could teach the younger mutants, though she lacked the patience for a class – her training was reserved for individuals and she had made that perfectly clear when she agreed to the role. Still, she was being useful and doing something worthwhile this way, even if she refused to believe that she was meant to be a teacher.

Her restrictions also ensured that she would not be seeing Warren, who possessed no power she could train him in and, in her expert opinion, all the aptitude for the martial arts that she’d had before fate had deposited her in Kwannon’s body.

Finishing the kata she’d been performing, feeling that body’s – her body - readiness for action, Betsy smiled and straightened.

Ready or not, the last thing she needed to be thinking of now was Warren, not when her student for the day was none other than Julian Keller. That was right, none other than Emma’s prized pupil back before he’d rather carelessly lost his hands during the mess with Bastion. Apparently, Miss Frost’s ability did not extend to teaching the poor brat how to use his telekinesis without said body parts, and so she had been asked to show him the ropes again. That was how Betsy understood it at least, hence her choice of the Danger Room for this particular lesson. She had not bothered to add anything except some mats, because she had a lesson plan in mind for Keller already and she wouldn’t need props.

In this world, Hellion did not exactly have time to waste – so he was either going to learn fast or he would be nursing even more bruises the next day. Betsy’s patience had never been her finest feature.

Dressed in her combat uniform, the midnight-blue leotard with the distinctive red sash around her slim waist and the high boots with their soft soles, all that Psylocke lacked was the katana. She somehow thought that the other teachers might object just a little to her slicing a student into small pieces, even Hellion. As almost always, her hair was loose, left to cascade to the small of her back. Betsy felt no need to tie it back. And so she waited, in the middle of the room, her feet set a little way apart and her hands by her sides. Her expression was even, calm and cool, only the slight narrowing of her violet eyes betraying her irritation.

He was late. That was his first mistake.

He really needed to get a new alarm clock. Or, more accurately, he needed to learn not to ignore his alarm clock and/or telekinetically smash it against the wall when he didn't want to wake up. But then again, he considered the whole debacle to be Psylocke's fault. She should have known better when she set the time of their Danger Room appointment at such a ridiculously early hour. Or at least, it was ridiculously early to him.

Julian Keller was not an early bird, at least at this stage in his life. Thus, by the time he had woken up, actually woken up, gotten out of bed, eaten, freshened up, and changed into his Hellion uniform, he was already late. By the time he actually arrived at the Danger Room, he was even more late.

It felt strange, being back in uniform. The red and black certainly didn't look any less awesome on him than they had before, and the gloves even covered the majority of his nonorganic attachments. But it had still been a while since he'd worn it as Hellion, the X-Men. Now he was Hellion, the person-in-recovery-from-getting-his-hands-blasted-off. God, life could suck sometimes.

It didn't help that Psylocke was the one who was helping him on his road to recovery. She was strict about everything, and for a person who had yet to earn Julian's full respect and trust, that could prove very annoying very fast. He was fully prepared to have his head bitten off by the time he entered the Danger Room. Hellion wandered over to the mats Betsy had set up for today's lesson, mildly wondering what their purpose was before his blue gaze darted up to meet her own. "Hello," he greeted nonchalantly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. He would have apologized for being late, but he figured that wouldn't help much.

Betsy watched Hellion enter the Danger Room and smiled, slowly and almost dangerously, the languorously lethal smile of a lioness watching the antelope step warily into her trap. It was not a nice smile, not a pleasant smile, but then Psylocke was not known for being one of the ‘nice’ X-Men and she never had been. Even in the early days, she had been ruthless and willing to take whatever steps were needed in her opinion, and that trait had only grown and hardened over the years she had spent with them. So, while she could smile in a way that brought grown men to their knees, the leer currently twisting her mouth was an expression that would send sensible opponents fleeing to the hills.

It was a small smile but she still somehow managed to make it gloriously lethal, sharp as a sword with just a little sight of teeth bared between red-painted lips.

He did not exactly cut a dashing figure in his red and black uniform, she thought, eyeing him over again as he wandered towards her. There was clear disinterest there, even without looking with her telepathy. It only made her smile more at the thought that she would be able to put that down to the timing. For the telepath, this was nothing. She was awake and about long before now as a matter of course. As far as she was concerned, this was a perfectly acceptable time. She also knew that students would not agree but she was doing this training out of the goodness of her heart and Hellion could damn well train when she told him. And he could like it or he could do without.

So she watched him approach, letting him wonder when she would scold him for failing to appear on time. It also gave him time to consider apologising for it, but she knew him better than that. He wouldn’t apologise, no more than she would in his place. Of course, if the reasons had been the same, he might have got a tiny bit of respect from her for it. But he just attempted to skirt the issue entirely, with no explanation because he had no good explanation. That’s why he was automatically defensive. That and she knew he didn’t like her very much. That was fine. She was not there to be liked, certainly not by Julian Keller, whose type she knew all too well.

”You deigned to turn up this time, I see,” Betsy said, in a sweetly sarcastic tone that hinted at nothing good following it. ”I was just starting to think you would prefer to remain useless for the rest of your life.”

The purple haired woman paused to let him retaliate if he felt brave enough before continuing. ”Today, we are going to work on using your powers in combat conditions. You’re able to use them well enough the rest of the time, but let’s see how you cope when you aren’t allowed time to focus.”

She smiled again. ”I was going to let you pick an opponent but as you wasted my time, you get me instead. Onto the mats, Julian, and let’s see what you’ve got.” Psylocke stretched out an arm in his direction and mock-beckoned him towards her.

Julian felt like a deer caught in headlights, with the headlights being Psylocke's intense, predatory stare. He had expected her to be unpleasant though, and was able to put up an impressive mask against her intimidation. At least, her nonverbal intimidation.

He couldn't keep himself from narrowing his eyes at her crass words, a green tinge covering his irises. She was one to talk. Hellion didn't know much about Betsy, mostly because he didn't bother to ask, but he knew enough to know that she had a history. He had always tried to fight for the greater good or almost always, and though his morals were a little questionable at the moment, he really was trying to get back on his feet. Whatever Psylocke had done, he was sure it wasn't as much as him. She hadn't sacrificed as much as him.

The green faded from Julian's eyes a moment or so later. It seemed that today's physical therapy would be more...physical than he had intended. It was usually so when it came to Betsy. Rolling his eyes, he meandered onto the mat as she mock-beckoned him forward, purposefully moving slower than normal. "I was five minutes late. I hardly call that a waste of time," he snorted, though he knew that Psylocke would agree to disagree. She would probably give him some sort of snarky reply to that, no doubt. Or beat an apology out of him later.

As he had been saying those words, Hellion's body began to glow with a green aura, and he just barely lifted his feet off the mat. Then, without warning, he took control of the mat and made to telekinetically wrench it out from underneath Psylocke's feet.