Chapter 5: Er, I don't think he meant that as a challenge part 1

Charles knew that this was going to be a touchy subject for some reason, and so decided to see if he could calm the situation down first. "Might I ask why Jean came to you for more help? I thought that she was doing well with her mental exercises."

"She said she was still having trouble keeping out other people's stray thoughts and emotions. And I have to say given the state of her mental defenses, that was understating things; if she didn't have as much control of her powers as she did, it would be far worse. Now answer the question Charles." Harry said grimly, his eyes locked on Xavier's like a cannon's aiming sights.

An apt description as it turned out because when Charles tried to say, "Mr. Potter, I am an expert in matters of the mind. So in the interest of saving time, let me simply assure you it is for the good of both Jean and everyone . . ."

"DO NOT USE THAT LINE WITH ME!" Harry shouted suddenly, bringing his hands down on the professors wooden desk. With a surge of magic, large wooden claws grew out of the desk to swiftly surround Charles' head, while another two reached out and grabbed him, pinning him in place.

Charles leaned back carefully, belatedly realizing that his words must have sounded like the old man Harry sometimes mentioned when he talked about his adventures in his home dimension, the one he called 'Bumblemore'. Harry had often mentioned how he had cloaked his agenda in something he called the greater good, which was dangerously close to the words the professor had unwittingly used. Note to self: watch how I word things around Mr. Potter from now on.

Harry stood up, nearly incandescent with anger. "I have heard that line far too often before to trust it! 'Harry, I assure you Professor Snape has my full confidence', 'Harry, for the greater good you must forgive and forget', 'Harry, I assure you, I have nothing but your best interests at heart'!"

He sat down abruptly, covering his eyes with one hand, breathing in and out as he tried to calm down. "Sorry about that Charles; you just, just hit a button I didn't know I still had. But I am not a child, nor am I going to be put off by polite, vague assurances. Just tell me straight out why you did it please."

Charles looked at the wooden claws still surrounding his head and decided to simply answer the younger man. "The first time I met young Miss Grey, her powers had been awake for a little less than a week. Yet it was not her power that I first sensed through Cerebro, but a . . . foreign entity that had housed itself in her brain. It had been there for some time and I could not expel it. I was worried how it would affect her mind and abilities and I was forced to seal it away from the rest of her mind."

Harry brought his hand down to stare at the older man. "And you're certain that it is a foreign entity? I didn't see any sign of that when I was in her mind."

"Positive," said Charles firmly.

Harry frowned a little. "And did you try to talk to whatever it was?"

"No. As far as I could tell, it is incapable of speech, or its thought processes are too different from our own for us to communicate with."

Harry leaned back thinking hard. He visualized Jeans mind again as it had been when she brought his astral projection into it. He didn't really think the books he saw chained down were the sign of a foreign entity, and the fissure in her mind below her…. that could be the sign of some kind of foreign influence, but I don't know. The point was he didn't really know one way or another, though he thought having whatever was in those books locked away would have an effect on Red's personality. And something else about it was bothering him, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. Still, there is something more important to discuss now. "Okay, so why haven't you told her about it?"

"Again, I was afraid how knowing about it would effect her mind."

"That might have been a good idea when she was younger," Harry replied sternly, "but not now that she is an adult, albeit barely," He smirked, while outside Jean sneezed, wondering why she suddenly had the urge to smack Mr. Potter upside his head. "Why haven't you told her about it?" His eyes widened suddenly, as if he had only just noticed the transfigured claws poised to gut Charles and he put his hands on the desk gently. A second later the claws began to recede and his desk returned to normal.

Charles nodded in thanks before sighing. "I would prefer to wait until her mind is fully formed to talk to her about it. That way, she will be strong and able to repel its influence. I want my X-Men to have normal childhoods, or as near as they can until they graduate high school."

Harry gripped his chair's arms very firmly and counted slowly to ten before responding. Even so, his magic got away from him for a moment and a few knickknacks on the huge bookshelf that dominated one wall suddenly changed shape. Some became little robins, others changed from metal to glass, but strangely it was the glass creatures that were moving around, while the robins turned out to be stuffed. Charles noticed this out of the corner of his mind and realized he had said something that could have set Harry off again if Harry hadn't been able to control himself.

As soon as he was calm again, Harry said, "Ignoring the question of that even being possible given their powers or if there is in fact something like a 'normal childhood', that's a nice sentiment, Professor—" and was it just Charles or did that word come out with some vitriol behind it? "But you are falling into two classic traps: the first is keeping secrets from your own partisans— something you shouldn't ever do; when secrets come out they will breed dissatisfaction and distrust. The second is one of assumption—you assume she would not rather know sooner, that she isn't ready for it now. Bloody hell man, this is her fucking head we're talking about!"

Charles frowned. "I'm sorry, Harry, but that is my decision to make. I do not believe Jean is mature enough just yet to handle learning about this."

Harry glared at him then said abruptly: "Three weeks." Charles blinked in surprise and Harry went on, "You have three weeks to tell her about it, Professor, or I will." Charles opened his mouth to protest this unilateral decision, but Harry went on inexorably. "Jean is an adult now. She has a right to know what is going on in her own mind. I refuse to hide something like that from her—hell, from anyone."

Who knows what kind of damage a block like that is doing to her, he thought angrily. I don't bloody care if there is some kind of alien entity inside her; those books aren't foreign. They look like any other mental block, and I know damn well that blocks can be dangerous.

"The only reason I'm giving you that time is because she knows and trusts you more than me, and you're the one who put it there in the first place. No, Professor, three weeks, I'll give you that much time to think up how to tell her, but if you don't, I will. After all, you have no idea whether or not you sealed other parts of her psyche along with whatever this thing was, and what danger that could be doing to her." Leaving that thought hanging in the air, Harry got up and left, leaving a suddenly concerned telepath behind him.

OOOOOOO

Harry walked into the danger room to the sound of a water balloon falling down on his head from above. He raised a hand and, with a wordless leviosa, sent it spinning back to Kurt, who caught it deftly, grinning. "Nice try, Blue boy, but a little unoriginal."

He walked forward, then suddenly levitated over a hole in the ground covered by a tarp and filled with paint that had been set up right by the entrance. "That was a little better, but you must try harder to prank the master, grasshopper."

Kitty giggled, then ran up and looped one arm around one of Harry's, dragging him forward to where the rest of the x-kids were waiting in a clearing in a forest the Danger Room had created, just like the trap and the balloon of course. "Hey, Teach, what are you gonna have us do today?"

Harry chuckled, most of his ill humor disappearing at the exuberance these two were exhibiting, though some of his irritation came back when he saw Jean with the others, stretching out quietly along with Rogue. He smirked a little as he saw Scott trying desperately to keep his eyes away from her and Rogue, while Evan not so openly goggled—the spandex uniform they all wore may have covered their bodies and obscured the details, but what they did show was enough, considering how fit they were. That brought another question to his mind: "Why are you all wearing spandex anyway? I just don't get that. The FF did too, must be a yank thing."

Jean rolled her eyes, while the others all looked at one another and shrugged. Scott straightened up as Harry walked toward them, frowning at Kitty still hanging off one of his arms. "All X-Men present and accounted for sir."

It was Harry's turn to roll his eyes, but then he became more serious. "Alright you lot, I realize I said I wanted to go over your AAR's with you before having a team drill, but I decided to see if you had learned anything in action before that, so we're heading straight into the team exercises. We'll have five sessions designed to help you learn tactics and teamwork. Each session will give you an objective and pit you against me using a team of Danger-Room-created robots. First up will be you against me and a company of regular troops protecting a computer disk in a building over there." He pointed away to the southeast through the computer generated forest. "Your objective will be to get the disk and get out." He looked down, ruffled Kitty's hair a little and stepped back as the Danger Room changed a little. He walked behind a tree and disappeared. Now, let's see what the kids have learned so far.

OOOOOOO

Scott slapped his hands together briskly. "Alright! Let's plan this out a little more thoroughly this time. Kitty, you'll be the scout on this one, with Kurt guarding our sides. Rogue, Jean and I will be in the center until we encounter resistance. Then we'll start to knock out the opposition and find one of the officers so Rogue can drain for his memories while Kitty moves off to grab the disk once we have a map of the building." Rogue frowned a little, knowing that was really the only use her powers had against regular troops. Oh sure, she could use her powers to knock them out, but that was about it; she couldn't drain their powers and use them as her own because they didn't have any.

Jean frowned suddenly, then turned around and blasted a tree behind them apart with her telekinetic powers. The tree shattered with an explosive crack of released energy that sent the pieces of the trunk stabbing into and through the trooper crouching hidden behind it with a radio. She stomped over, looking down at it as it faded from sight. "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me, Mr. Potter!" She turned back to look at the others. "Okay, we can continue now." For some reason, she felt a little elated by that bit of mayhem. "Maybe we should switch up those orders a bit, since that 'trooper' probably relayed all of what you just said to the opposition."

Scoot blanched a little at the surprising violence, but nodded. "Alright. In that case, we should switch it up. Kurt you're our scout; bamf out a hundred feet or so then come back every three times to report to us until you find where the enemy forces are. We'll still send Kitty in to grab the disk though." Kitty frowned a little at that, as did Jean, but she nodded. After all, if these were regular troops, they wouldn't be able to stop her from ghosting through everything to get to the objective, once they knew where it was anyway.

Kurt nodded and bamfed away, heading in the direction Harry had indicated as the others made their way after him.

OOOOOOO

Harry smiled as the robot radioing him the little planning session died. Well, whatever else, Red still seems able to learn, regardless of that thing in her head. Grrr, shake it off Potter and get your own bloody head in the game.

His company of 250 infantrymen were broken up into squads of course. He had placed most of them around the building, which looked like any normal military building—square, squat, and dull—with three squads in the building itself. Now if he knew the kids, they would go for the old flash and feint with Kitty going for the disk on her lonesome. It was a good plan, if the opponents didn't know what her powers were—an assumption that could eventually get her killed—so the electrical current going through the walls, floors and ceiling of the room that held the computer disk meant that wouldn't work. The question was: what they would do when that happened, and how they would go about bringing the flash. He made his way up to the roof to better direct the action, a dedicated com-man next to him to relay his orders. Around the roof was a squad of snipers.

Not ten minutes later, a red beam of light lanced out, smashing into one of the foxholes and throwing men hither and yon. "I wonder if One-eye would be so quick to overpower his eye beams like that if these were real troops? I have to ask about adding some more realism to these things. Ah well." He turned to his com-man. "Contact front. Have third and fifth squads break contact, reform behind the base, and move out in skirmish formation to flank left and right respectively. First, second, and fourth, hold positions and lay down covering fire, wildly uncontrolled bursts, overload them if you can. Snipers, priority targets are the redhead or the man with the eye beams."

The clearing erupted with the sound of gunfire as his robotic troops obeyed him and Harry shook his head, thankful once more for having been put through the SAS small-unit-tactics course, even if it made the phrase 'Hell Week' far more real than he had ever wanted it to be. Only he and Neville had survived to the end, with their larger than average magical cores to sustain them rather than sleep. Neville was exhausted by the end of the week, Harry remembered fondly, while he was still good to go physically, but not mentally. Below his vantage point, the battle continued as more red beams lanced out joined by dozens of bone spears from Spyke.

Over her strong objections, Marvel Girl had been assigned defense. While her kinetic power was able to slow, stop, or redirect the bullets coming at them, there were hundreds of bullets coming toward them. Suddenly it got worse as two snipers found their range; their rounds moved faster and were heavier and thus harder for her to stop. Scott and Evan were trying to keep the troopers' heads down, but the troopers were too spread out for Scott to take more than a few out with each blast, and Evan could only hit them as fast as he could throw his spears.

Cyclops ordered Kitty to make her way forward before barking out orders to the others. "Nightcrawler, take Rogue and get in close. Knock out as many of them as possible. Spyke, charge forward and get in among them too. Marvel Girl and I will stay here and . . ."

At that point, the two squads Harry had moved around to pincer them got into firing range and Jean went down, unable to protect herself from that many bullets from that many directions. The Danger Room announced her death in its normal mechanical tone: "Marvel Girl, mission kill."

At that point, Cyclops forgot the mission and turned to see the redhead down on the ground. "Marvel Girl!" He ran over, leaning down to check to see if she was alright and fell down dead, taking several bullets in the back.

"Cyclops, mission kill." Scott groaned, smacking his head on the ground but he turned to see if Jean was alright. Despite taking numerous 'gunshots', she was, and she was glaring at him angrily. Scott gulped and shifted away a little as he saw her hand starting to glow a little.

Meanwhile, Evan had been pinned down in the open, unable to survive being shot and with no cover fire. Eventually killed, joining his teammates. Rogue lasted longer where she had been dropped off by a wildly teleporting Nightcrawler, but she soon went down as well.

Kitty was caught by the electricity sparking over everything in the room with the targeted disk in it. She cursed and began to bang her head against the wall as soon as the Danger Room marked her as mission killed. "Damn it! I should have known. Harry was the one to help me figure out I had a problem with electricity, of course he'd use it to protect the disk!"

Nightcrawler lasted far longer, bamfing from place to place and even taking out all the snipers and a dozen of the troopers using the martial arts skill Logan had been pounding into him. Eventually though he too went down, 'stabbed' by two of the men he had tried to attack.

Harry shook his head, smiling a little. The kids had learned a little, but not much just yet. Still, that was what these little exercises were for. "Danger Room, cancel simulation and give me a sitting room big enough for all of us here. Oh and tally up how many troopers I lost. Come on lads and lasses, quit laying there feeling sorry for yourselves." The youngsters all groaned but complied, Jean still glaring daggers at Scott, who was hunching his shoulders, but his jaw was clenched mulishly.

The Danger Room responded, forming a large sitting room where they each had comfy chairs facing where Harry lounged on another chair. Kurt was the first to collapse into his chair, already exhausted by the number of teleportations he had done in so short a time during the session. The Danger Room spoke up as the others took their seats. "Total number of kills: 118. Numbers broken down: Nightcrawler: forty. Shadowcat: zero. Rogue: seven. Marvel Girl: one. Evan: twenty-two. Cyclops: forty-eight."

"Not bad. Not great, but not bad. These DR-created troops weren't exactly reacting like a normal human unit, either in a good or bad way." Harry said.

Evan nodded. "Yeah. I think this exercise is good, but the troopers need to react better. I mean, we've all been in fights against the Brotherhood and we know that people normally grunt or yell when they get hit. I don't know what noises people would make if they were, y'know, being killed, but still. And wouldn't there be a moment of panic or something, even if they knew what our powers were?"

Logan, who was as usual watching from his place in the control room, spoke up over the speakers at that point. "We'll tweak the program to be more realistic going forwards, punk. How realistic do you want it, Potter?"

"As real as you can make it Logan. I want the next crew to act as lifelike as possible. That means reacting for themselves and panicking—make that last bit a random thing in the program for the next batch." Harry turned his attention back to the kids. "Now, what do you think went wrong?"

Jean frowned, not wanting to dress Scott down in front of the others; she thought it would be bad for the team dynamic. Kurt spoke up before any of the others, "We went in a little too cocky. Again." He said that last word a little bitterly, as it really was a mistake they should have known to avoid by now. "And we didn't react to our opponents moves, just bulling ahead."

Harry nodded seriously. "Understand one thing above all else, learn this one lesson above all others: flexibility beats out planning and brute force. Being flexible, able to change and take advantage of openings as soon as they appear, is essential to winning any fight. Being prepared for any foreseeable chance is what makes a good tactician and leader."

Scott stiffened, knowing that dig was being sent his way and wondering what he could do to become better. Harry had indeed meant it that way. He had hoped to see more of Scott's leadership qualities, and they still had three of these exercises to go, but he was already coming to the conclusion that Scott just wasn't cut out to be the leader. He tired hard, and he quickly assumed that role, but that didn't make him the best for it.

Rogue spoke up, a little irritated by how useless she was against normal troops. Oh they just had to touch her for her powers to take them out, but that had proven easier to said than done. On the other hand, boy was she thankful that the troops weren't really humans; that many sets of memories would've given her a hell of headache. "What would you have done then, Mistah Potter?"

Harry smiled. He did want them all to call him that during these little sessions; it gave the whole experience a little more serious tone. "I would have had Kurt and Kitty scout out the perimeter, then taken the snipers out of action with Scott's eye beams or Kurt teleporting Red in among them. Plus I was up there and without me to direct them, the troops would have simply remained where they were dug in. After that, you would have had to fight your way through the building, but that would be easy enough with Kitty to scout for you."

"And what would you have done to combat that tactic?" Jean asked, breaking off her glaring at Scott to look at him.

"I would have spread the troops out a bit more and rigged the building with booby traps to counter Kitty's phasing ability." Harry answered promptly. "I might not have been on the defensive that often when I led the New Marauders against Moldyshorts, but I know how it's done. The SAS blokes that trained us were very bloody thorough, let me tell you." He stared off into the distance and for once, he was smiling as he remembered. "And there are a few families minus their home but with all their members alive that wouldn't have been without that training."

The X-Men all shared a look, shivering a little. Up until the past few weeks, none of them, even Scott, had really realized how serious being an X-Man could get. But whenever Harry looked away like that at something no one else could see, they were getting a pretty clear idea. It was different from Logan's gruff exterior and worldly ways, or Storm's calm, quiet, tested confidence.

This was a young man—barely two years older than some of them—who had fought in a war and wore his scars on his sleeves and in his eyes. Who was helping them to learn how to fight and survive, not because he believed in Charles' dream (though they thought that was a part of it), but because he felt they would need it. They all vowed at that point to step up their game going forward. After all, the Brotherhood might be kids just like them, but who knew what other enemies were out there? The little powwow session continued for another fifteen minutes, then they broke up for another run.

OOOOOOO

The kids did far better in the next operation, which was a mission Harry had taken from World War II. They were a force of allied troops ordered to take out an artillery battery by a certain time to allow a fleet attack the harbor it protected. This time however, he warned them all that the opponents would be both regular troops and at least three troops that could use the spells that Harry had already used in the Danger Room against them when he first arrived. They were given a map of the area, but no information about patrols, people, or anything else, but were told Harry would not be participating, as he wanted to see what they would do.

This allowed Scott to plan out the attack, and again, Harry was not impressed by the fact that he didn't take into account any of the other team members' suggestions. In fact, he ignored them despite the fact that Jean and Kurt came up with very good ideas. Jean's idea of using her telepathic power to cause chaos among the defenders by turning a few of them randomly on one another was scary, and probably wouldn't have worked as well as she thought, but they could still have tried it. Scott shot it down however by saying it would take too long and exhaust her for further action.

Kurt's was a little out there; he thought they should not even bother entering the fortress, but instead just get in front of the guns and melt them just enough so that none of the artillery shells could actually pass through the barrels. It was a good idea if you didn't take into account that there were patrols around the bottom of the cliffs at all times that checked in randomly, or that such a thing would be pretty obvious to the troops in the actual artillery battery. Again, however, none of the kids suggested sending off Kurt and Kitty to distract the guards, which would have been the best idea, as these troops were programmed to not have a clue about the kid's powers. The solidarity the kids showed, not thinking of splitting off to achieve the objective as two different groups was nice, but didn't help them actually achieve said objective and further showed their lack of experience and flexibility.

Instead, the group went with Scott's idea with very little in the way of discussion. His plan consisted of drawing out the defenders, then taking out as many of them as they could before fading away, forcing ever more troops to come out until they were weakened enough for the team to take on in a frontal assault. However, they forgot that Harry had made the robots in this session act as human as possible. Even without Harry actually participating, the robots responded appropriately rather than, as Evan called it, "a stupid AI would, like in RPG games", whatever the heck those were. Harry had never been able to play a computer game in his home dimension (he'd never even had access to a computer, except in the public library), and had been far too busy since he arrived to play them. Instead of being drawn out in small groups, the defenders came out in force faster than the X-Men could respond to.

The X-Men still won, performing excellently under fire without any snipers or attempts to encircle them and taking out two of the magic troopers during the battle, which surprised Harry, but they still lost Nightcrawler, Rogue and Spyke before they could retreat. They did, however, take out one of the special troops, which impressed Harry.

After entering the complex, both Marvel Girl and Cyclops went down when the group ran into the last of the magic using troopers. Much like in the first session, Jean went down first overwhelmed by the magical blasts she had to keep away from them, though she did take the magic trooper down with her. Scott went completely to pieces when she went down and was easy prey for the guns of the rest of the troopers.

Harry groaned and looked up at the ceiling as Kitty, little innocent Kitty, was able to get through to place the bomb. Not only that, she did it in a place where the troopers couldn't see it, and soon enough the bomb exploded, taking out the artillery pieces just in time to beat the timer.

"I don't know what Scott's thinking," he said to the air around him, "but I don't think he's winning any points when he goes all the pieces when Red goes down."

Storm replied from where she had joined Logan in watching over the sessions from the control room. "I think it's rather sweet," she sounded a little dubious, "yet also very stupid; you're right."

"Pretty much what I thought too, the last part anyway." Harry ordered the danger room to cancel the present session, and walked over, ruffling Kitty's hair approvingly. "Good job little one, way to keep your eye on the ball!"

Kitty grinned, staring up and wishing desperately once again that he were a few years younger and thus datable, but alas it was not to be, and she had seen the looks he and Storm shared. Pity; those eyes of his were so-o-o dreamy, and the rest of him wasn't bad either.

As the others gathered around, Harry called Scott over to talk to him. Scott went, still not certain what he had done to cause Jean to glare at him so much.

Harry put an arm around his shoulders, drawing him in close and whispering into his ear ,"the next time you lose it because Red goes down, I'm going to start pranking you mercilessly every hour for the rest of the week, including the time you spend at school. I will find a way, believe me. There is more to these sessions than just you making googly eyes at her, and you're not making any points with her, me, or your other teammates. She doesn't seem to like the attention, and all your other teammates can see your preference for her. They all can tell you'd choose her over them and that will effect teamwork and morale."

Scott flinched a little looking a little uncomfortable. "We shouldn't be doing these until we're dead anyway, that doesn't teach us anything!" he exclaimed after a moment, ignoring the last few things that Harry mentioned.

"Life-and-death situations teach a hell of a lot more than situations where you can get back up again right away." Harry said calmly. "Just be glad I'm not putting you lot through Hell Week." He smirked a little, thinking of what would happen to them all. The only two he could think of that would make it even halfway through were Red and Boney, the first because she was so damn stubborn, and the second because he seemed to have way more endurance than the others. Apparently he was a bit of a basketball star, which probably explained it. "Just because you can't seem to keep thinking once Red goes down is no reason to stop the exercises." With that parting shot, he brought Scott back over to the others.

"Alright, you achieved the objective, so that is technically a win." He shook his head sadly. "I'm not one who thinks like that however; I want everyone here to go into and come out of these little training sessions alive, just like in real life. Start taking these exercises seriously, because one day they might be. Every one of these exercises I'm throwing at you lot could be achieved with you all alive at the end if you put your heads together. Now, we're going to go through this one again," he said looking over at all the others in pushing Scott forward to join them. "I want to see you guys learning from your mistakes."

The next two sessions were pretty much the same, only this time the kids had learned a bit. Expecting a massive response against their little probing attack, they had prepared several ambush points, and between the two of them, Evan and Scott were able to wipe out nearly the entire force that came out after them, even the two magic-using troopers. As they were doing this Kitty, carrying Rogue, was popping in and out of the fortress grabbing the attention of the guards and taking out and draining any officers they found inside while Kurt teleported Jean up to the canyons where she destroyed the artillery using her telekinetic powers. Casualties on their side included everyone but Kurt and Jean this time, as Kitty was caught my a magic trooper, which was far better than before in planning, but not perfect—they still took casualties. The second time, Kitty and Rogue went in first, taking out the officers and disorganizing the enemy, then the others attacked much as they had before. Without officers, the trooper's reactions were slow and chaotic, allowing Kurt and Jean to destroy the guns before the X-Men lost anyone.

By this time, the kids were getting tired, especially Kurt. All of the teleportations he did in the first session and the few in later rounds were coming back to haunt him; he was exhausted. The others were bruised and battered and Kitty looked as if she were close to falling asleep. Phasing around with Rogue took a lot out of her. The only one who didn't look worn out was Jean, who looked almost as fresh as a daisy—as if she hadn't been using her powers and constantly protecting herself and her friends from bullet swarms.

Harry looked at her, briefly wondering if that was because of the strange powerful entity that Charles had reported was living inside of her, but shook it off for now. He had wanted to continue, but looking at the kids, he realized they were too tired to get the most out of what he had planned next. "All right," he said smacking his hands together. "I think we should call it a day. I'll go over your AARs tonight and see what you think of your performances tomorrow. See if you can think up solutions to the issues in your performance today. Then we'll each look over recording of today's sessions, see what you think of each of you individual efforts."

As soon as those words left his mouth, Kitty, Rogue, and Kurt all collapsed to their knees, Kurt did so on purpose, as he began to kowtow, smacking his head on the ground and genuflecting. "Thank you, oh vise master. Thank you, thank you!"

Harry laughed along with the others, then kicked his head just a little bit to get him to stand up again. "Now, these little exercises are supposed to teach you how to work as a team, but you can learn to be a team in many other ways and one of them is just hanging out. I prepared oodles of popcorn and drinks before coming down here, and I installed a little device onto the TV that will let you watch any movie you all decide you want to see. Go. Have fun and hang out a bit and get to know one another outside of life-and-death situations, school work or even more dangerous things."

He waved his hand and the X-Men all moved off except for Jean, who asked, "can I get out of this? It's not like I don't see the point or don't want to hang out, but I have a physics test on Monday and it's a hard one. Our teacher's a bit of an anal retentive, if you don't score 80% or better, you fail."

Harry looked up at the ceiling and asked, "What do you guys think?"

Storm's voice came back quickly from a nearby grill. "That is true; she chose to take the hardest physics course the school offers, and that demand sounds very plausible given what I know of the teacher in question."

Harry nodded. "All right, Red, you can go, though I think Professor Xavier might have something he should say to you."

"Not at this time, Mr. Potter," Charles's voice replied, sounding quite a bit colder than normal. Harry simply smirked and walked away while Jean, wondering what the heck that was about, made her way up to her room.

OOOOOOO

"Your letting them off pretty easy, aren't you, Potter?" Logan greeted the younger man as he entered the control room. Ororo simply smiled, which Harry reciprocated to as he pulled up a chair. Both Logan and Storm tried to ignore the tension between Xavier and the wizard, but both were wondering what had caused it.

Harry scratched his chin, shrugging. "I pushed the kids as far as I could today; their powers take a lot of energy apparently, and only Evan really has enough endurance to keep using them for long periods of time. Using their powers as much as they do in these sessions wore them all out. Can you tell me more about Evan's powers by the way? Is there an upper limit to how much of that bone stuff he can pull out?"

Ororo answered him sitting down quietly and leaning back, smiling slightly as Harry's eyes followed the motion for a moment before he settled on her face. Harry never perved out on her, but the little things he did to show he found her desirable were quite pleasant—even the outright flirting they did at times was fun, though they never flirted during their morning talks. Harry kept his distance then, which was rather sweet, since she knew he still sometimes had issues seeing her as nature intended, though not enough to make him or her uncomfortable. "We haven't seen an upper limit to my nephew's abilities in terms of the size of what he creates, though the amount of bone he can bring out at any time is directly proportional to the amount of calcium he takes in on a daily basis. Why?"

"Right now, the kids have two long range specialists, Boy Scout and Red, two infiltrators, Kurt and Kitty, and two skirmishers whose skills are wildly different. Rogue is excellent against one enemy in close, but at range is a liability, same when facing large numbers of troops; she can take them out, but taking in that many memories knocks her out, right? Evan, though, is excellent at taking on large numbers, but they really need a tank—someone who can center the battle, get in close and disrupt the enemy and match any strong man they have, Kurt mentioned something about a 'Blob'? If Evam can make armor as well as offensive weapons, then he could be that tank."

Ororo smiled. "He will like that idea quite a bit. Evan has complained about how he seems to be a little underpowered in comparison to Scott's and Kurt's power, despite the fact that the looks that come with his mutant gene are very useful." Evan only compared himself to the other boys, all of whom felt the girls were, well, a little weaker than them, save for Rogue whom, as Harry had pointed out, was a bit of a one trick pony.

Harry eyes narrowed. "Yes . . . Scott. Can I ask why he was chosen as leader of this little troupe of yours?"

"Why are you asking, Mr. Potter?" Charles looked at him, wondering where this was going to go.

Harry smirked a little, staring back at him. "I'm asking because he has none of what I would call the leadership variables. He's not very charismatic, doesn't listen well to the contributions of the others, is pretty self-centered, far too certain of himself, and isn't mentally flexible."

Before Charles could respond Logan asked curiously. "Then who'd you pick as the team leader, punk?"

"Kurt." Harry answered simply. "He learns fast; he's flexible, has a certain amount of charisma and listens to his teammates."

"Nonetheless, Scott is the team leader. He takes the position seriously; he is the most powerful offensively, has had the most training, and is the most knowledgeable about military matters." Charles said firmly, trying to end the discussion. Scott was indeed the only one of the teens who had stepped up into the leadership role, and he drove himself hard to fulfill it. What was more, Charles didn't think any of the others were mentally mature enough to handle the responsibility.

His attempt to end the conversation didn't work. "Taking the position seriously is nice and all, but it doesn't make up for the other intangibles. Scott may think he's a natural leader, but he really isn't. A good leader takes the opinions of others into account before making plans. A leader, especially on the small scale we're talking about, has to be flexible, and Scott isn't. Worse, he plays favorites. They lost the first sessions as badly as they did because he shut down, ignoring the enemies around them and the welfare of the rest of his teammates, when Red went down. Don't get me wrong, Red's an integral part of the group; her telekinetic powers are incredible in both strength and ability, but they still had a chance to win both the first and second matches when she went down."

"Those things can be taught," Charles said, again firmly, trying to head off the argument. "Besides, none of the others have stepped up and tried to assume a leadership role, have they?"

Harry looked over at Logan and Ororo and both of them shook their heads. Harry frowned. "Well I suppose there's nothing we can do about it now, but I would recommend trying out the others on a rotating basis. Still, at this point it's really not all that important as long as they have Ororo or Logan around to make the decisions in real life situations."

Honestly, the one he felt had the most leadership potential was Red; none of the others had her poise or control and she was becoming more and more flexible as she continued to learn. But he could tell Charles was more leery about whatever the entity inside her was than he wanted to let on, which was why he mentioned Kurt, whom Harry felt could be a leader someday.

Moreover, the bald one's support of Scott meant this was a losing battle anyway. Maybe it's because Scott's the one that has been drinking his Kool-Aid the longest. Harry thought grimly. Then again, from what I've seen so far in terms of flexibility and listening to others he and Scott are pretty much the same.

"True. Now, what else do you want to have them work on?" Harry asked.

Harry shook off his misgivings for now, wanting to remain professional despite his disagreement with Xavier. "Rogue and Kitty both need to learn some weapon to augment their powers; Kurt could do with some more hitting power. One trick ponies do not last long, trust me. I knew plenty of wizards that were great magic users, but take away their wands and they were helpless. It's a pity you don't have a good engineer here to make them some stuff. Still, I can see what I can come up with. Also, I want to look at ways to give those spandex uniforms of yours some more protection—why on earth do you have them wearing spandex anyway?"

Charles and the others looked at one another than shrugged. "It just seems appropriate," Charles answered, a little lamely he had to admit, "Spandex just seems to be what heroes wear, that's all."

"Hmm. Well anyway, I think Logan should take over their training again. Build up their endurance and hand to hand skills; that'll give me more time to work on a few toys for the kiddies, as well as my other projects. Evan can do some things about getting better at using his power, but I don't think I can help him there; after all, we still don't even know what my mutant power is. I'll give the Boy Scout some reading and things to research and get him more acquainted with small-unit tactics. Run him through some sessions like this every night and only let him move on when he can keep all of his team alive and achieve the objective. Your choice on the objective and the enemy units, and I'll lead the opposition as often as I can, and with that lady, gentlemen, I'm off." Harry stood up, bowed grandly to Ororo then nodded cordially to Logan before shooting a look at Charles out of the corner of his eyes as he walked out of the control room. "Remember Charles, three weeks." Charles stiffened, but Harry was already gone. He frowned a little but waved off the questioning glances of the other two and wheeled himself out of the room.

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