3

Logan knew he was basically being used to punish the kids.

Not all of them;  just a few Scott or Storm had branded “troublemakers” for one reason or another.  Most of twenty or so kids sitting on mats spread on the gym floor were older kids with “physical” powers - meaning not projection based, or ones that had to be used close up, not at a distance.  They would benefit the most from what little he could actually teach them.

As for the troublemakers, he figured Scooter just wanted him to scare them shitless.

Why was he doing this?  He really wasn’t sure.  Xavier had asked him to, and he must have been in a good mood at the time (or intensely bored - sometimes it
was the same thing), because he'd simply agreed.  Well, it was the only thing he thought the kids needed to learn, that Scott certainly wasn’t teaching them - hand to hand combat.

Okay, Xavier called it “physical self-defense”, and Scott referred to it as a “last resort”, but maybe since the mansion had nearly gotten trashed this last couple
of times, they realized it might be good if some of these waifs could look after themselves if need be.

In the back, slumping against the wall and looking unnaturally green, was a clearly hung-over and unwell Brendan.  Well, he did have a physical power:  his demon side gave him strength, and - if Yasha was right, and she surely had been - a certainly invulnerability to many things.  But he figured he’d give the kid a break and never call him up; break ups were tough, malt liquor was worse, and the refusal of Scott to get that was the worst thing of all.

Logan still felt foolish being in front of a bunch of kids, that were looking at him like he might have something to say.  But this was one area where he never doubted himself, not in the least.  Fighting was something he could always do; fighting was the only thing he could do when his mind was gone.  It was so ingrained in him he was sure you could wipe out all his higher brain functions, and he could still do it - that was actually worrisome, but he decided not to think about how he’d come to be so well trained (programmed?) that it was now an indelible part of him.

Scott was standing in a corner to the right of the kids, pretending he wasn’t there, but everyone knew he was here to keep his eye on things, making sure he didn’t tell the kids the twelve ways to instantly kill a man with your bare hands or something.  Even he looked at him funny when Logan told the kids to show up barefoot and wear clothes loose enough to move in, but not so baggy they’d be a hindrance, but Scott didn’t object.  He didn’t follow his rules either, but that was okay, because he had no intention of calling Scooter up here; if he kicked his ass in front of the kids, Scott would probably have him booted out, or at least subject him to a massive hissy fit.

He, himself, wore just a tank top and drawstring black pants, nothing else, and it was cool enough in the gym at this time of day to raise goosebumps on his arms, but he knew he’d be warn soon enough.

As soon as the kids were settled down - and when he told them to zip it, it was funny how fast they complied - he decide to give them the little lecture about how they should consider ever getting into a hand to hand fight a last resort, yadda yadda yadda, and then started breaking down the sanitized “rules” of hand to hand combat:  disable or be disabled; turn a defense into an offense; attack restlessly (brutally); never lose your focus, but try and throw your opponent off his; and most importantly, vary the attack and never get locked into a typical response or style.  Or, to quote Sun Tzu from ‘The Art of War’:  “The most efficient
of movements is the one that is unexpected.  The best of plans is the one that is unknown.”  Some of the kids looked surprised after he said that, and he wondered bitterly if they were shocked he could read.

He’d cleaned up the basic rules by not adding, “Never get into a fight unless you’re prepared to kill; kill or be killed.”  He told Scott it was just a way to point out you never went into anything without thinking, in your mind, that you could win, and that your opponent could very well be trying to do that to you - in fact, in all likelihood - and you were at an automatic tactical disadvantage if you were simply trying to spank them while they were trying to murder your ass.  But Xavier thought it might “unnecessarily frighten” the kids.  His argument that life was frightening didn’t seem to carry as much weight as he thought it should have.

Piotr was good enough to volunteer for some demonstrations, although really, if he hadn’t volunteered he’d probably have been forced into it - metalled up, Logan was certain he couldn’t hurt him badly, not unless he popped his claws.  He had Piotr take a swing at him so he could demonstrate that even people who seem invulnerable due to their powers have weaknesses.

It was just a half hearted swing - although he put force behind it, he wasn’t within a foot of actually connecting - but rather than blocking it or responding in kind, he stepped under his arm, grabbing it, and bought it around with him.  Keeping it at full extension, he twisted Piotr’s arm back but kept it straight, so Piotr had no choice but to drop to his knees as he grabbed the back of his neck with his free hand, forcing him down.  He was careful not to hurt him, but it was a devastating hold; one twitch in the wrong direction, and he could pop his arm straight out of his shoulder socket.

He told the kids that - in Piotr’s case, metal or not - his joints still had to obey the laws of physics, which was simply that they bent more in one way than the other. Arms were especially vulnerable to breakage and dislocation; a good, forceful kick in the kneecap could snap someone’s leg like a twig (but not Piotr’s - the metal probably protected him there).  But if you were dealing with a shapeshifter, or someone who could go liquid or semi-solid, then all bets were off.  In fact, all he could advise was never to get into a physical confrontation with a shapeshifter who was as malleable as Chameleon - there was no way to win there, and you were better off leaving that type to those with projection powers, who didn’t have to get too close to fight.  This lead one of the more mouthy kids to pipe up, “Are you gonna tell us how you kicked Mystique’s ass?”

“No, but I’ll demonstrate if you wanna get up here,” he replied dryly.  Amazingly, the kid didn’t get up;  he also shut the hell up.

In all fairness, he had Piotr catch him in an arm hold so he could show some ways to get out of it, but Piotr showed that, as strong as he was, he was a combat innocent: he grabbed his arm and rather than do what he did - keep the arm straight, force him down to his knees - he just grabbed it and bent it behind him in a standard incapacitation hold, bent behind his back, with both of them standing up. Logan didn’t want to embarrass him by pointing out how wrong that particular hold was, so he just said that distance was always a good thing, because extreme close proximity brought special hazards.  He showed everyone how he could break this hold:  a sharp elbow, driven up into the face (he told them to go for the nose, as it was easily broken and quite painful - he didn’t add, in deference to the Boy Scout, that, if your hit had enough force or momentum behind it, you could drive cartilage fragments from the broken nose up into the sinus cavity of the brain and kill someone instantly.  But it was true); a drop down, whereby he dropped into a crouch - as much as the hold would allow - and reached behind him to grab one of Piotr’s legs (he didn’t pull it and send them both falling, but he told them that’s what you did, and once you both hit the ground, it was easy to roll out of the hold.  Even if your opponent didn’t let go, you could simply resituate yourself to where the hold wasn’t painful, and beat the shit out of them until they did let you go);  and the more complex, harder to calculate move of grabbing Piotr by the back of the neck (which he did) and using his upper body strength to flip over Piotr and get behind him, breaking the hold and putting Piotr at a distinct disadvantage.  He didn’t do it, but he knew he could, and he told the kids that was only for people with good upper body strength, and strong opponents, as using them as your balancer could fail, or hurt them very badly (not a bad thing, actually, but he threw it in for Scooter’! s benefit).  Also, they probably had to have good pain tolerance, as it was extremely possible executing the flip, even if successful, could dislocate the held arm, and rip out every single muscle and tendon.  It wasn’t a big deal for him with his healing factor, and slamming a joint back into socket hurt, but not very long (some of the kids looked distinctly queasy - not just Brendan).  Still, it had to be considered last resort, and only for those who had the strength and dexterity to pull it off.

He also told them that if they could tap into their own survival instinct in a fight, they should, and obey it unquestioningly.  It was the strongest, most primitive instinct all living beings had, and the sheer ferocity of that desire just might be enough to keep you alive.  Although logic was great, simple instinct was overlooked too often;  it had its uses as well.

Some of the kids did have some self-defense knowledge: some had taken some martial arts of varying types and effectiveness, and Brendan had his street fighting style, which was all improvisation and almost no rules - amazingly sloppy, but pretty damn effective.  The most ideal thing would be a synthesis of martial arts discipline and street fighting impulsiveness.   He had them get up and pair off to try out stances, and because the class wasn’t an even number, he had Brendan team up with him.  This made him, oddly enough, look even more hung over.  He warned them no real contact, and no showing off, he just wanted to get an idea of their experience level, strength, and weaknesses, that’s all.  Some had promise;  others, clearly, hadn’t a prayer.

As Bren joined him up front, Logan teased, “So, ya gonna rush me?”

He scoffed, looking pained behind his eyes. “Fuck you.  I’d punch my mother before I rushed you.  Do I look like an idiot?”

That caused some laughter from the kids close enough to hear it, although Scott scowled, probably from the use of bad language. “I wouldn’t hurt ya.  Much.”

“Sheyeah, right.  I think I’m supposed to be a lover, not a fighter.”

“Can’t help ya there.”

Brendan raised an eyebrow, giving him a look that said  “Oh really?” but he didn’t say it aloud.  Instead, his face seemed to fall, and he whispered, “Matt hasn’t come back yet.  What if he isn’t coming back?  What if something bad has happened to him?  You know he’s not nearly as tough as he thinks he is.”

“Who is?” Most people weren’t;  most people over-estimated their own abilities, unless they had self-esteem issues, then they underestimated.  But Matt was not the type to underestimate himself.  He was in fact, the ideal type to have his mouth write a check his butt couldn’t cash, but his power - breaking everything he touched - probably made up for several sins, and he was hardly shy about
using it.  Which was another problem in itself.

Oh, fucking Christ, what could the kid be out there doing?  There were so many possibilities, and none of them good.  The best case scenario was he followed Brendan’s lead: he put a self-pity drunk on, and just passed out somewhere - hopefully somewhere safe.  Maybe he was in the drunk tank.  But wouldn’t he
have busted out as soon as he woke up?

Bren looked agonized, but it had nothing to do with his raging hangover. “What if something awful’s happened?  I mean, he can’t really take care of himself that well …”

“Look, after class, I’ll ask Xavier about it, okay?  He can find all sorts of mutants with his Cerebro doohickey;  he’ll find him.”

****

“What do you mean you can’t find him?”

Xavier looked sheepish as he shrugged helplessly, the worry never leaving his eyes. “Just what I said, Logan.  He’s not in the state;  he’s not in the surrounding states; Cerebro seems to indicate he’s nowhere on planet earth.”

That was never the answer you expected, and it was especially unwelcome now. Logan sighed and ran a hand through his hair, trying to keep his darker thoughts at bay.  It was cool down here in the “secret rooms”, and he wished he’d stopped to put his shoes on, because he forgot how cold this fucking metal floor was.  “But that means he could just be asleep, right? Passed out?”

“Yes, that’s the interpretation I’m embracing.” His brow furrowed in concern. “That wasn’t your first thought, was it?”

“You know what trouble that kid is.”

“That doesn’t mean he’s stupid enough to go and get himself killed.”

“No, but I wouldn’t put it past him.” He looked away, mainly because Xavier was giving him the ‘stern father’ look, and he said, “Well, I guess me and Bren can go look for him-”

“Not Brendan,” Xavier corrected him. “Let’s not make this a bigger deal than it needs to be right now.  He’s already upset, and I’d rather not add to that.  We have had runaways before.”

“Ones that can’t be found?”  But before Xavier could respond to that, he said, “Fine, I’m better as a solo act anyways.”

“I think you and Scott should both handle this.”

Oh god, he knew it.  “Look, Chuck, I know you mean well, but he and I … no.  It’s never gonna work, and you can’t force it.”

Xavier gave him a small, superior smile that he really wanted to rip off his face.
“But it has worked. I admit you two are a …. volatile combination, but you do compliment each other.”

“Take that back.”

“You know it as well as I do, Logan.  You have diverse styles, but you accomplish more together than separately.”

“That ain’t true.  I’m fine on my own.”

“But you don’t have to be.”

He scowled at him, in no mood for some kind of pseudo feel good philosophy, or for Xavier’s bizarre attempts at making a team player out of him.  “I’m just gonna go look for Matt.  Scott can work a different end of the city, I don’t care, just leave me out of it.”  He turned and walked away, not about to debate it with him. 
And thanks to the energy Bob left in his head, Xavier wasn’t going to dog him telepathically either.

He stopped by his room to put on his socks and boots, and decided it was a warm enough day that his tank top was fine; he just grabbed his denim jacket off the chair and went to find Brendan.  He was with Rogue out back, still having a pity party over the break up, and it wasn’t hard to find out where he last saw Matt: a downtown club with the really lame name “Yellow”.  What the fuck kind of name was that for a club?

He then walked back inside, taking the shortcut to the garage, and he was barely in the door when Scott’s little blue car pulled up.  “Get in,” he sighed, looking unhappy about it.

Logan folded his arms across his chest. “Xavier’s putting you up to this, isn’t he?”

Just from the way he tilted his head, he knew Scott had rolled his eyes. “Look, just get in, okay?  The sooner we get this over with, the sooner we’re done with each other.”

Oh fuck. With an angry sigh, he walked in front of the car - almost daring Scott to floor it (of course, he’d just total his car - they both knew he’d be fine) - and got in, slamming the door a bit harder than necessary.  “Why are you driving?”  He asked, just to be peevish.

“It’s my car.”

“You drive like an old lady.”

As if in reply, Scott really pressed down on the gas as they left the garage.  Wow, he was almost doing the speed limit. “You know a lot about old ladies, huh?”

“Do you even know where we’re supposed to be goin’?”

His jaw was taut, like it was only seconds away from fracturing under the strain.  Oh yeah, Xavier was forcing him to do this big time.  Logan suddenly realized he might be able to have some fun with this. “You tell me.”

Lovely. “A club called Yellow.”

“Yellow? What kind of name is that for a club?”

“Yeah, I know.  These kids today with their body piercings and their appletinis and pudding in a tube -”

“You’re mocking me, aren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Knock it off or I‘ll turn on the radio.”

Oh man, pulling out the big guns already. “You still listen to shitty boy bands?”

Scott glowered at him. “Try me and find out.”

Logan chuckled, glancing out the side window at the scenery moving past them. “Wow, he really pissed you off makin’ you team with me, eh?”

“I’m just in no mood for your usual shit, okay?  And you’re not going to wear your seatbelt, are you?”

“Why should I?  I’ve done headers through a windshield before.  Takes more than that to kill me.”

“So I’ve noticed.” He flexed his hands on the steering wheel, and Logan slumped back in his seat, figuring maybe he could catch a few winks while Scott tried to negotiate New York traffic.  Once you got out of the rural, tony rural/suburban areas like this, traffic got bad, and fast, although none ever matched the arterial clogs that made New York famous for its craptacular commute.  In fact, he might have actual time for a nap, and it would spare them both the agony of having a conversation.

But peace was short lived, as he suspected it might be. “You - you did a good job with the kids today,” Scott said reluctantly, after about five minutes of silence. Maybe Scott found the silence more unbearable than talking. “You handled them really well.  They never doubted your authority.”

He snorted. “They were scared shitless of me.”

“With that group, it only helps.  But you did a lot better than I thought you would.”

“What, you figured I’d punch ‘em all in the face?”

“Not exactly -”

“I’m saving that for graduation.” He smiled to himself, aware if he opened his eyes and saw Scott’s expression now, he’d probably be unable to keep from laughing.

“Ha ha.  Thanks for leaving out the death stuff too.  I’m sure that was hard for you.”

“You can’t shelter ‘em from the real world forever.”

“There’s been enough death - too much - already.  I’d like to keep from contributing to that.”

He shrugged, not about to point out that it was sometimes unavoidable - Scott had to know that by now.  It was just something he didn’t want to acknowledge, which was no skin off his nose.  There was only so much reality some people could handle.

There was another long pause, filled by the soothing hum of the engine, before Scott asked, “You really read The Art of War?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?  Yeah I read it - the untranslated version, in fact. The translations always vary in quality, so the untranslated is best, if you can understand it.”

“You know I can’t read … Chinese?”

“Chinese,” he confirmed. “And yes, I’m just gloating.”

“Can you rebuild the transmission on a ‘98 Cavalier?”

“Why the fuck would I wanna?”

“Exactly my point.”

“You can’t read Chinese ‘cause you don’t wanna?”

Scott sighed in frustration.  It was just too easy sometimes. “Forget it, Logan.  Or should I call you Lingo?”

That made him sit up as if shocked, and he opened his eyes to glare at him. “No you shouldn’t.  Don’t ever call me that.”

Scott glanced at him, as surprised as his face could get - it was such a chancy expression when you couldn’t see someone’s eyes.  “What?  I thought -”

“I don’t know who that is.  Whoever he was, he died a long time ago, and I don’t want you mentioning it ever again.  Got it?”

His eyebrows raised far above his visor, and he briefly held up his hands as if in surrender. “Okay, yeah, whatever.”

He was not going to talk to Scott about that.  He just knew the next thing would be him asking about Jules and what he may or may not have told him, and he wasn’t ready to give away that questionable fragment of himself, not yet.  Maybe not ever.  He had very few things that were his own;  he wasn’t going to lose one of them.

He slumped back in the seat, closing his eyes and crossing his arms over his chest. Now it probably seemed hostile, but he didn’t actually give a flying fuck.

Scott was blessedly quite for maybe five minutes (or possibly ten - time always seemed stretched out with him), when he said, “You could not do that flip.  That’s defying the laws of gravity.”

It took him a moment to realize what he was referring to.  “Gravity has nothin’ to do with it.  It’s all upper body strength, and some agility.  It’s like doing a one handed chin up or push up, just in a weird direction.  And it does motherfuckin’ hurt, so I don’t recommend doing it that often.”

“You’re saying you’ve done it?”

“I’ve done a lotta things.”

“Now that I can believe.”

There was a nice respite of peace until they apparently reached their destination, which was signaled by a chorus of loud, abrupt honks.  Logan was of the opinion that whatever New York State's song was, it should always be performed by car horns, just for realism.

Scott found a place to park not too far from where they wanted to be, and then they got out and walked.  Scott was wearing his usual preppy “around school” clothes, with a X-Men jacket over it all, and he looked like he was already sweating;  the temperature was technically mid-sixties, but the one hundred percent humidity made it seem like eighty.  Poor dope.  Logan wondered how
long it was gonna be before his newscaster-like hair-helmet melted.

Scott looked around at the neighborhood they were in, and made a noise of disgust. “What?” Logan taunted, taking the lead down the broken sidewalk. “Got something against squalor?”  Actually, it wasn’t quite that bad - it seemed to be the point where a fashionably wasted neighbor simply became totally wasted, and tough guy poseurs hurtled head long into real tough guys, and never came back again. Crumbling facades and cracked sidewalks were signs of neglect that were far from benign, and metal safety grids to protect windows were still deployed, even though the businesses that were around (a corner bodega, a barbershop, and one of those payday loan places that he thought were illegal) were open - that was always a bad sign.  Even the sunlight seemed corroded, as
if seen through a dusty filter.

Yellow was the bottom floor of a three story building, the top two floors of which were clearly abandoned.  Yellow was shut right now, which didn’t surprise him.  It also didn’t surprise him that it was one of those clubs that didn’t look like one; from the outside, it looked like a low rent art gallery, displaced from Soho.

He followed the overwhelming stench of human piss to the back alley, which was a dead-ender filled with the various detritus of local residents and businesses that didn’t want to pay to get this trash hauled away.  It was also - apparently - a toilet for the local wino population.

“This has got to smell worse for you than me,” Scott noted, wrinkling his nose in disgust.

“Like you wouldn‘t believe,” he agreed, trying very hard to parse all the smells.  Piss and vomit were the strong notes, but once he got past them … he crouched down, and found, on the dirty pavement, a tiny brown spot.  There were a couple of varying size, scattered around this one area near the head of the alley.

“Have you found something?”

Logan touched one of the spots, just for confirmation.  It was dried, of course, but particles of the scent clung to the grooves of his fingertip, and up close, there was no denying the owner.  “Matt’s blood.”  He stood up and brushed the dust off his hands, although the blood smell wouldn’t be going away that easily.  No matter ; it was a bit better than piss.

“His blood?” Scott sounded stricken. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah - I know what he smells like.  But this is from earlier.”

“Earlier?”

“Y’know, when Brendan bitch slapped him?  Look; there isn’t enough blood to be even a minor wound.  He prob’ly just split his lip or something.”

“Do you think he left a trail of blood you could follow?”

“What am I, a fucking bloodhound?”  He turned around, and scowled at him before he dared answer that. “If he got out to the sidewalk - and trust me, he did - the traces of his blood are gone now. There couldn’t have been much - he wasn’t stabbed - and people must have tracked it into oblivion by now.  All this tells us is that Brendan was telling the truth.”

“Was that ever in doubt?”

He shrugged. “C’mon, let’s see if we can find any clues along the way.  Maybe a big graffiti tag reading “Matt was here, and his hair was perfect”.”

“At least we’d know that was our guy.”

“Yep.”

They walked straight down the street, following the sidewalk where it turned, working on the assumption that Matt stomped off blind, with no thought to destination. They walked a couple of blocks, until it looked like they had hit the ass end of the garment district.  People walked past them on the sidewalk without a second glance, and someone almost walked straight into Scott - you had to love New Yorkers.

“See or smell anything at all?” Scott finally asked.

“That could help us find Matt? No.” After a pause and another scan of the area, he asked, “What was his relationship with his parents?”

“Hideous.  Apparently he wasn’t a runaway but a throwaway.  His parents kicked him out of the house after he was expelled from school - for breaking roughly half of it in an angry snit - and then came out as gay.  And you know Brendan was a runaway, but they had met during that brief period that Brendan was still in the same high school with him.”

“If that pissed ‘em off, then after finding out he was a mutant, they’d probably have killed ‘im.”

Scott sighed angrily, tacitly agreeing without being forced to acknowledge it otherwise. “I don’t know.  I don’t know what people are thinking half the time.”

“Of themselves, nine times out of ten.”

“That’s extremely cynical.”

“And correct.  Bet on it, and you’ll never lose.” Logan checked the traffic, and then jaywalked across the street, leaving Scott to scramble after him.  A cab honked at both of them, barely slowing down, and Logan felt like a real New Yorker now.

Logan approached one of the almost ubiquitous homeless guys who sold papers. He was sitting on an overturned crate, in the shadow of a closed loading door, looking tired from the heat anyways.  He was a lean, older black man, his skin slightly grayish from a progressive illness he could never shake - hepatitis B, if his nose was correct (and when wasn’t it), his close cropped, curly hair shading towards gray.  Logan dug in his coat pocket and found a fifty dollar bill, which
he held out to the man , who looked up at him with genuine surprise.

“Do you know how much that is?”

He nodded. “I was hoping you could give me some information on the area.”

The man's expression was guarded, wary.  A street veteran - good, just what he was looking for.  If you wanted to know the ins and outs of a city - especially its underbelly - you went to the homeless for information.  “I’m not into drugs.”

Scott, who must have figured out what he was going for, said, “We’re looking for
a missing boy.”

“A teenager, named Matt.  Good looking, multi-racial, got in a fight last night outside of Yellow.  We think he ended up somewhere around here, but he disappeared.  Heard anything?”

The man still looked between them warily, but he said, “You don’t need to pay me.  I ain’t around this neighborhood at night.  It’s not safe.  I usually move by the subway stop, where people are.  There aren’t enough people about this block.  If that boy was here late, you might have cause to worry.”

“Why’s that?” Scott asked. “High crime area?”

The man snorted, and said, “Yeah, you could say that.”

The way he said it, and the way he looked away, told Logan something was really wrong.

“Gangs?” Scott guessed.

“In a manner of speaking.  They only come out at night.”

“You mean demons, don’t you?” Logan said.  It just sounded like a question;  it wasn’t.

The man looked at him sharply, his brown eyes turning hard.  It was possible this conversation was over, and it had just gotten started.