"Who–are–you?" Said the girl in front of me. She was hunched over in a feral combat stance. Despite the sweat covering her body I noticed her breathing, controlled. Somehow the girl has no signs of fatigue from whatever hellish fighting she had conducted in here.
I said, "626." She frowned at my answer, perhaps unsettled or confused by it I'm not sure. Seeing her remain in position I returned the question, "you?"
The girl blinked and I could tell she was thinking of her response which felt odd to me, why take so long to say your name? She dropped her stance and straightened herself, eyeballing her height, she was around 5'2-5'3 feet. Not that threatening to me I thought, but there were dead holographic men around her a few seconds ago.
Finally she answered after a long few seconds of staring at me, "X-23."
At that I dropped my combat stance. She's just like me then? Or a different type of experiment. We stood there for a few minutes unsure on how to proceed with the situation at hand.
"Want to spar?" X-23 said with a blank face, "sure." I replied.
I got closer to her, approximately a meter away from her. Standing in the middle of this room I spoke, "do you want to reveal each other's powers or keep it a mystery for the spar?"
"Best for me to explain my own ability in case you're planning on holding back. My claws can cut pretty well and I can heal almost anything, think of fighting me as you would Wolverine." She said.
Logan? How odd that SHIELD had no information regarding X-23, could be that she never fought for the X-men. Very odd indeed if what she says is true. "My body heats up, if I let it get hot enough I can burn through metal but since it's a spar I'll simply burn your skin. I can heal almost anything as well but don't cut off my arm. For example, it'll burn right through the floor when separated from my body." I explained.
"A handicap for me then." She replied in a subtle bored tone. Her answer kinda irritated me, "my handicap is not melting you to your bone." I said.
X-23 face twitched a bit, "let's begin."
The moment her words left her mouth we both attacked. I expected a normal well trained fight and threw a right jab at relatively normal speed. I underestimated her speed. Almost at the same time she stabbed my elbow with her right hand and with the claw in her right foot stabbed my knee. X-23 looked at me trying to gauge my reaction to the pain, almost bored with the result of her attack. She wasn't treating this as a fight, not yet at least. I grabbed her arm before she could pull back her claws and kicked her with force using my unharmed leg. With my strength she went flying a few meters in the air. When she hit the ground X-23 rolled on her back in a controlled manner and stood back on her feet after absorbing the force of the hit. While X-23 was flying she recovered from what should have been a broken ribcage and I healed from the stabs.
We stood a few meters apart now both realising that our opponent can take a hit. A faint smile formed on X-23 lips, she found someone who could handle her fighting style. Knowing her speed now I raised my power to match hers. My gut told me that with her height and speed it would be hard to get a hit in, probably would have to suffer countless stabs if she was comfortable fighting up close. I either have to make my hits count or aim for a grapple.
After a moment we resumed our spar. We ran at each other, I delivered a flying knee kick and she slid across the ground under me with her momentum. When I fell back on the ground X-23 somehow acted faster than me and jumped on my back. Immediately she began to claw out my back. My response was simple, I jumped high into the air and allowed gravity to do the work as I fell on top of her.
I cracked the floor yet all I heard was a simple growl from X-23. Within a millisecond I jumped to my feet sensing X-23 releasing her hold on my back and turned to see her jabbing at my chest slicing it. I dodged a bit trying to match her speed before returning the punches. However when I did land a punch X-23 resisted it and preferred to continue her assault then gave space. For a couple minutes we both stubbornly gritted our teeth to the pain and kept our stance tight fighting inches away from each other.
In terms of hits landed it would normally be seven out of ten X-23 would land, I'd land four out of ten but with a stronger force than hers, although her fists had claws attached to them. Seeing the prolonged exchange of punches I took a chance and aimed my hands in front of her closed fists trapping them. I managed to do it and now her claws poked out on the other side of my hand, my skin glowing red around the penetrated skin of my hand. X-23 tried to pull her hands out of my grasp but failed miserably. I however pulled her towards me to deliver a headbutt. Five times I smashed my head into hers and my face had her blood running down it. Yet before I could deliver the sixth headbutt she threw a flying kick at my head, plugging the claw attached to her foot through the bottom of my mouth and I could feel it tickling my brain. With the other leg she kicked my chest impulsing herself out my hold while doing a backflip in the air creating distance between us.
X-23 was grinning at her escape when I looked at her after recovering. I couldn't help but share a smile as well and we returned to our spar. I'm not sure if what we did could be considered 'rounds' but each time we separated from each other we'd change fighting styles. The next round I kept using my elbows to attack while X-23 would duck using her legs to fight, barely using her arms at all. The round after that we both used grapples on each other, often throwing each other to the ground; often breaking our arms, legs, any bone required to escape the other's arm or leg hold. The next round was the most fun for me, X-23 attacked me like some sort of animal, dashing at me with insane speed and I decided to dodge using backflips, front flips, or simply throwing her around. We continued this way for hours and never spoke a word to one another.
—
"Did you check the bathrooms?" Logan said to Kurt.
"I checked everywhere for mine friend. Hopefully he will return." Kurt answered.
Bobby spoke, "if it weren't for those two love birds and their unhealthy relationship our plan to have him represent us in SHIELD could have worked."
"Bobby! I didn't hang out with him just to use him for politics, he's actually a nice person." Rogue said.
"Me too." Kurt and Kitty responded.
"Me too guys but if we really want to be X-men. We need to think of the mutants around the world." Bobby said.
"It's fine. It's not like he has much voice in the matters of SHIELD, he's just an agent." Said Storm.
A boisterous chuckle came from the large metal man at their side, Colossus spoke in his accent, "their most dangerous agent. Have we not seen the same footage, his battles on Hanks tv screens? A shame, he would be a fine addition to the X-men."
"Eh, I could beat him." replied Bobby winking at Kitty, "ice vs fire huh?" She said.
"Actually it's heat, or thermal heat like Professor Hank said." Replied Kurt.
"Sure ya, whatever, point still stands right laddies?" Bobby said.
Kitty laughed at his antics and the rest rolled their eyes. Rogue looked at Logan as they made their way to the Danger Room, "it sounds like Laura is training again." She said to Logan.
He sighed and massaged the sides of his head, "all she does is eat and use the room. It's not training Rogue. Not to her." Logan said the last words as a tired old man. "I almost wanted her to meet the kid too, Rogue. But I believe it would only reinforce her ideas of being combat ready for her dead enemies if they met. There's nothing for me to worry about now that he left for SHIELD at least."
"Laura isn't as violent as him in combat at least, I think? Normally she's gone before we come down to use the room." Bobby said.
Logan turned to look at him and tilted his head with a meh expression on his face, "well she… Fights like me, but more efficient. They trained her to go for killing blows and I… Well you know."
"A wolverine?" Kitty said with a grin that the rest shared.
Logan sighed again, "kids these days."
They opened the Danger Room hearing the constant *BAM* from Laura's training. However they stood in silence seeing the state of it. Nothing was damaged that the room couldn't replace but the blood, it covered the entire room in pools of blood. It was drawn from the only individual that could leave that much other than Logan, Laura. What they absolutely didn't expect was the individual who made her bleed that much, 626.
Currently Laura had her legs around 626 trying to drain him of air while clawing his eyes out repeatedly and he was trying to stand up from the previous exchange of blows. When he did, 626 grabbed Laura's thighs and slammed her against the floor the same way a WWE wrestler would but with tremendous force. Yet Laura kept her hold spewing blood from her mouth, in turn 626 resorted to pulling her off until he could throw her across the room at the wall leaving a crack where she collided with it. They both were stuck in their own twisted world of joy and ran at one another to continue their fight.
Logan finally snapped out of it, "Laura!"
626 looked at her in confusion, "Laura?"
X-23 looked at him in return, "my mother named me Laura."
Logan walked up to them, "what are you doing to our guest?" His voice was strict and looked at 626, "I apologise, Laura must have thought you were an intruder." Logan said in a stern tone although with a hint of anger seeing the blood on Laura that he caused.
"We were sparing." 626 replied bluntly.
"A spar?" Logan asked with wide eyes surrounded in Laura's pools of blood.
"He's good." Laura answered bluntly. She looked at 626, "we have to go, the X-men use the Danger Room in the mornings and sometimes evenings or throughout the day. It depends. We can come back at night to decide who wins."
"So it's called the Danger Room. Okay, at night we decide who wins." 626 responded and they both started walking to the exit until Logan grabbed Laura's arm, "Laura, this area is meant to be a secret. And you 626…" He let out a breath of air, a sigh, "go talk with Charles about this."
"I'll take him to the Professor. It's my responsibility that we went this far Logan. Good luck training your X-men Logan." Laura said with doubts regarding the X-men.
Logan let go and watched as they left together. The rest of the trainees walked next to him watching as they left as well. Bobby spoke up first, "shouldn't they shower before walking around the school covered in blood?"
Logan spoke with a faint tired voice, "just suit up with the uniforms Hank made. I'll program the room to clean up this mess and start today's simulation."