The massive steel shutters slid open with a smooth hiss. Inside the Danger Room, lights flickered to life, casting long reflections across the holographic floor. The walls shimmered faintly—loaded with a fresh scenario, one built for pressure, terrain, and elemental intensity.
At the center stood Storm, cloaked in a sleeveless black training tunic, silver hair braided down her back like a crown of lightning itself, it was her practical class..
Up in the observation deck, overlooking the room through reinforced glass, three figures slouched lazily on a couch that definitely wasn't meant for movie night. Scott Summers and Alex Summers sat side by side, still bandaged and bruised from the recent Krakoa missile incident.
Next to them, reclining fully with his legs up on the console, was Bobby Drake—one hand in a popcorn tub the size of a tire. "You know," Bobby said, mouth half-full, "it's great that we're not training. We should almost die more often."
Alex chuckled. "As long as I'm not the one actually dying, I second that."
Scott rolled his eyes. "You two are unbelievable."
Just then, Petra walked in, leaning against the doorway with her arms crossed. She watched the trio for a moment before slipping beside Bobby. He offered her the popcorn wordlessly. She took a handful, chewed slowly, then muttered, "Didn't you say yesterday that you wanted us to train on the most difficult level next time?"
Bobby blinked. "Huh? When?"
Petra just huffed, turned on her heel, and walked out. SLAM. The door closed behind her.
Scott and Alex turned to Bobby simultaneously with identical expressions of pure judgment. Scott spoke first, voice dry. "You asked her out when we were still tied up and getting absorbed by Krakoa, Bobby." Alex nodded solemnly. "Yeah. And we remember. What's your excuse?"
Bobby's face slowly transformed from confused to horrified as memory hit him like a mental slap. "Shit," he whispered. "I ruined it, didn't I?"
Alex patted his shoulder. "Go, man. Chase her. You still got a chance." Scott added with a smirk, "Before she decides to bury you under three tons of bedrock."
Bobby bolted up, stumbled over the console, tripped slightly, then raced after her, mumbling to himself, "I can fix this. I can fix this. Maybe if I bring ice cream—wait, she likes rocky road or mint—fuck!"
The door slammed behind him again. Alex and Scott broke into laughter. "God," Alex wheezed, "he's a disaster." Scott, smiling despite himself, leaned forward, adjusting the focus on the observation panel. "At least we get to watch the chaos this time."
Inside the Danger Room, a storm brewed—but not from the environment. It came from the woman standing silently in the center. Ororo Munroe, aka Storm, stood like a general awaiting her troops. Arms crossed, back straight, chin high—radiating regal calm and sharp steel all at once. There was no light banter. No warm greetings. Just stillness.
Then, one by one, the First Generation X-Men trainees began to enter. Remy LeBeau, twirling a playing card between his fingers, paused as soon as he felt the tension. Armando Muñoz adjusted his gloves, eyes narrowing. Calvin Montgomery Rankin, aka Mimic, slouched in with a yawn but quickly stood straighter seeing Ororo's posture. Suzanne Chan and Anna Marie came in together, whispering something to each other—until they, too, fell silent.
This wasn't a normal class. Ororo spoke. Her voice was sharp and even. "Today's lesson is trust." The group blinked.
"You are a team. You are the first generation under this new structure. Out there, there won't always be a teacher watching. I won't be there. Xavier won't be there. Logan won't be there. Out there—" she pointed toward the far wall, where the Danger Room's metal gleamed "—you will only have each other."
They listened. The air was thick. "You're not just students. You're examples. Every younger mutant here looks at you like an older sibling. What you say, what you do—they will mimic."
Remy, unable to help himself, leaned toward Calvin with a smirk. "You hear that, Mimic? She said they'll mimic your behavior." A beat.
Everyone laughed, except one. Ororo didn't even blink. Remy's grin died fast. Ororo continued, unfazed. "Scott isn't here today. That means I want to see who among you will step up. Who can be the backup leader if he's down."
Then she raised her hand. The room began to shift, the Danger Room scenario launched.
Platforms rose from the floor. Walls folded and twisted. Simulated mountain terrain collided with urban wreckage. Trees sprouted from steel. Fog descended. Obscuring everything. The field was chaotic—the way Ororo liked it when training the team. "Let's begin."
From above, in the observation deck, Scott and Alex sat in silence.
They watched as Ororo summoned a torrent of wind that sliced across the terrain—not to harm, but to test reactions. The team scattered and regrouped. Anna and Suzanne tried to lead a flank, Remy and Armando stuck to instinct, Calvin copied abilities recklessly.
Alex leaned back. "I think I'm really glad we're not in there right now." Scott said nothing at first. Then. "Something's off." Alex glanced over. "What do you mean?" Scott's eyes narrowed behind his visor. "Teacher Ororo's usually tough. But this... this is relentless. She's not just testing them. She's pushing them—hard."
Alex blinked. "You think… we messed up? In the last mission?"
Scott exhaled slowly, watching as Anna got clipped by a simulated debris wave. "I don't know. But I think we're all being reminded that we don't have forever to get good at this."
They both fell silent again, the distant crackle of thunder rising from the Danger Room below. Simulated lightning cracked the sky above, followed by rolling thunder that shook the earth beneath the First Gen X-Men trainees' feet.
Wind howled. Trees bent sideways. Rain slammed down with unnatural force. Remy LeBeau slid across a slick platform, coat flaring, narrowly dodging a razor-thin whirlwind that carved a trench in the simulated ground. "Okay, so maybe dis ain't our normal Wednesday trainin', non?" he shouted over the roar of the storm.
No one answered. They were all too busy surviving.
Calvin Rankin was straining—he'd mimicked Ororo's lightning affinity, but the second he tried to redirect a bolt, it exploded around him. "Grahh! She's not just testing us—she's fighting us!"
Armando Muñoz, aka Darwin, hardened his skin against the pressure. But even his reactive evolution struggled to keep up with the intensity. "She's pushing us past our baseline adaptive curve," he muttered. "This storm's reacting to our every choice."
Suzanne Chan and Anna Marie worked in tandem, trying to stabilize the field—Suzanne freezing raindrops into jagged needles mid-air, Anna hurling them with wind-force throws. But Ororo's gusts scattered their attacks like paper. "Why won't she let up?!" Anna cried out, shielding her face from stinging debris.
Above it all, Ororo floated silently on an updraft, her eyes white with energy, her arms outstretched like a goddess of judgement. Her voice boomed through the chamber. "You act as individuals. You coordinate through instinct, not trust. If you fail to adapt—you die."
The team staggered. The wind itself seemed to grow angrier, reacting to her words. It wasn't just weather—it was emotion.
The team tried everything. Remy threw charged cards against the storm walls to break vision. Calvin tried layering powers—light manipulation, wind resistance, kinetic deflection. Darwin adapted to high-altitude oxygen to withstand the pressure. Still, the storm kept overwhelming them.
Until—"Let's trust each other!" Remy shouted. They all turned. "Really trust. Work together like we mean it. Trust that we'll back each other—not because we thought it's efficient, but because it's all we got."
Darwin's eyes lit up. "Of course. That's the lesson. She's been trying to tell us this from the start. It's not about combat... it's about connection."
Remy looked at the others. "Let's do this, team."
They changed. Anna threw Remy, who used a midair charge to burst through the rain barrier and redirect it using Calvin's shield. Suzanne timed her ice barrier with Darwin's shifting density, making it absorb rather than shatter.
Calvin copied Darwin's adaptability to anchor Suzanne, who in turn chilled the winds from the inside out. A chain of trust. Working as one. The storm didn't end—but it bent, slightly. Slowed. Ororo lowered a hand.
Inside her mind, another storm raged. Her body stood still, but within, her thoughts spiraled like a hurricane. 'Charles.You altered memories. You admitted it. How do I know you never do more?' The idea burrowed deeper than she wanted to admit. 'Did I choose this path on my own? Or did you guide my thoughts like wind through a canyon?'
Her breath shook. 'But… even if you did… these children—' She thought of Kurt, of Scott, of Jean, of all of them. 'They're my family now. I've watched them grow. I've bled for them. Laughed with them. I love them.'
And that love—that love hurts. She clenched her fists. 'Maybe I'm being unfair,' she thought. 'Maybe I'm projecting. But if they don't learn to trust each other now… they'll fall apart later. And I won't let that happen.'
Down below, the team stood together, panting, bruised, soaking wet—but no longer scattered. They didn't know what Ororo was wrestling with. But they understood the lesson now. And Ororo, watching them, slowly landed—eyes softening. "Lesson complete."
Then she turned her back to them—too proud to let them see the flicker of pain behind her eyes—and began to walk toward the exit.
…
The faint hum of machines was the only sound in the lab. Vital monitors blinked gently. Screens flickered with graphs and heat maps. In the center of it all, Jean Grey lay unconscious, surrounded by the quiet rhythm of surveillance.
Moira MacTaggert and Dr. Hank McCoy stood on opposite ends of the lab—both busy, both silent. Moira's eyes scanned the satellite feed of Krakoa, cross-referencing fluctuations in terrain with psychic activity markers.
Hank sat beside Jean, pen tapping against a clipboard, noting each spike in psionic waves—delicate, chaotic patterns orbiting Jean's sleeping form like galaxies forming under glass. Neither spoke. Not of Charles Xavier. Not of what he had admitted.
Then the door opened. Charles rolled in slowly, the hum of his wheelchair almost lost in the mechanical noise of the lab. He paused. They didn't acknowledge him. Didn't look. Didn't move. Charles exhaled softly. "Jean is still mending," he said, voice quiet. "She's close. She'll wake within the day."
Still nothing.
Moira adjusted the calibrations on the satellite scan. Hank turned a page on his clipboard and clicked his pen. After a moment, Xavier gave a small, almost imperceptible nod—and left without another word. The soft hiss of the door closing was the only sign he had ever been there.
Time passed.
Only when the room was still again did Hank break the silence. "Should we consider what Piotr said?"
Moira didn't look up. "You mean… collaborating with Krakoa? Establishing something permanent?"
Hank nodded. "A sanctuary. Not like what Jack Hou did—taking land by force. But something shared. Grown."
Moira let out a breath. "Charles did say we need to evolve our way forward. Maybe this is the evolution we need. Maybe this is the one path that doesn't end in war or exile."
Hank's voice was wary. "But… should we? Why help him? After what he did?"
Moira finally turned to him. "We're not helping him, Hank." Her voice was soft, but unwavering. "We're helping them. The children. The students. The ones who just want to live their lives. The next generation."
She glanced toward Jean's unconscious form, her gaze tightening. "What Charles did—his secrets, his control—that should never have happened. But… that doesn't mean we abandon the future we've been trying to build."
Hank sat in thought for a long moment. Then he quietly nodded. "You're right."
They both looked at Jean again. Her brow twitched, just faintly—somewhere deep inside, her mind was stirring. Moira whispered, "Let's hope that… when she wakes up, whatever memory returns to her… isn't as painful as his betrayal."
And with that, the silence returned—heavier now, but steadier. They would keep going. For her. For the children. For the future.
Even if their faith in the dream was cracked… they still believed in the ones who would inherit it.
**A/N**
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**A/N**