Calling the Shots

284 - Talk about a time you were forced out of something.

The X-Men and I have parted ways on a few occasions. Only one of those times was the split something not my doing.

No, that's not true. Even then, it was my fault. At the very least, I take responsibility for what happened, and now that I have the advantage of hindsight, I can see how and why things turned out the way they did.

( Duel )

(501)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

It seemed like everyone wanted to be somewhere else. Even though Alex had been just fine with Lorna's getting married, he still decided to get away for awhile. Alex had given Scott a call, letting him know that even though he'd be finding a nice remote corner of nowhere to go hiking, Alex would still be reachable in an emergency. Scott, for his part, had found himself sort of looking forward to the ceremony itself, and when that didn't happen, his mind just seemed to refuse to get off the track. It had been the reason Scott had done the asking, wondering if his brother would let him and Emma use the guest room at his place in Hawaii, something Alex didn't have a problem with.

So, that's what brought them to the beach house, taking a couple of days off from shepherding the small and crucial remaining generation of mutants. It rarely took much convincing to get Emma to go on vacation, and this time was no exception. Of course, Scott continued to wonder just how much of his recent preoccupation his girlfriend had picked up on lately. Hopefully, he mused, not too much.

Scott hated spoiled surprises.

Lounge chair set up under an umbrella, glass of iced tea set on the table beside, Scott had parked himself out on the sand to page through a novel that Hank had recommended. He and Emma had arrived early in the morning and had simply crashed on the guest room bed. Scott had left her still mostly asleep when he came out to read and relax, but now, a half hour later, he could hear the door open behind him.

278 - What are you wearing?

I know I tend to call it a "uniform", but when it doesn't look like anyone else's on the team, then that's a misnomer. It's a costume. Plain and simple, it's a costume, and its purpose is really pretty plain and simple: to make me look like a super-hero.

( Clothes make the man )

(436)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

273 - "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" (Who watches the watchmen?)

The world keeps changing.

You discover this when you're a kid and you get a new teacher every year, or one of your best friends moves away because their mother got a new job. People come into and out of your life, you live in different cities, and a country that was on maps in third grade isn't there when you get to tenth. More often than not, it seems, those changes aren't for the better. And if they are, they're rarely easy.

This has always been a difficult world for mutants to live in. Even when we numbered in the millions and suddenly there were mutant fashion designers and pop stars and an entire nation and it seemed like soon enough, the world was going to have to get over its hate and fears simply because of numbers, those hates and fears still existed. They still took their toll.

Now, mutants number in the hundreds. The person at the head of the most powerful government agency on the planet is no longer a super-hero, but a former super-villain. Everywhere we turn, threats that have been hiding and simmering for years are feeling emboldened. Emboldened and angry.

So it falls to us, here at the Xavier Institute, to give the remaining mutants of the world hope. They need to know that we're here for them. That the X-Men are here to protect them as well as the whole of the world, and that the Institute is here to educate and empower them. They need to see us as leaders and as guardians, as examples and as a safe haven.

It's become our responsibility to shepherd this last generation of mutants and do all we can to ensure that there might be a next generation, and many more after that. All these lives and the weight of all our history and the mutant race's future all rest on our shoulders.

And it's all I can do to hope that we know what the hell we're doing, because if we don't get it right... it's over.

(344)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

270 - Thirteen

The first time I ever heard of "the Twelve", I was in Alaska. At the time, I was trying to figure out just where things stood between me and Madelyne Pryor. Considering the tangled mess that was our marriage and relationship, I'm not surprised that I was so distracted that I got caught off-guard when Master Mold attacked.

The Sentinel-creating machine was, as usual, determined to put an end to me. While it was trying to kill me and I was trying to put a stop to it, Master Mold described me as being one of "the Twelve". I came to understand that it was referring to a group of powerful mutants whose destinies were somehow linked.

( Apotheosis )

(419)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

267 - In medias res

Not that I didn't already suspect it, the right hook I got from Rockslide pretty well confirmed that the kids were pissed off at me. I didn't have time to dwell on the reason behind it, but that much was obvious, even to me. And like so many of their predecessors would, these young X-Men carried their hearts and their grievances into battle and into the Danger Room. That's the reason I was winning.

Okay, that probably pissed them off, too.

( Three against one )

(475)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

262 - Lines

When I was thirteen, I was a reasonably good student. Although I consistently scored above average in pretty much every subject, I wasn't the guy who blew the bell curve, either. That is, except for one subject: math.

I'd never been especially good with numbers before then. It took me weeks to learn my times tables, and long division had given me headaches. Arithmetic was fine, because I could think in numbers of objects, and I could see the shapes we studied in geometry. For years, I'd been a solid B student in math.

And then came seventh grade and analytical geometry.

( Red Arrow )

(439)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

259 - Write a prompt that begins with the words: "I don't understand..."

((set during Uncanny X-Men #495))

I don't understand why anyone would want to leave this place.

Emma and I have been in the Savage Land for... days, I think. Maybe it's weeks. I have no idea, really, and that's part of the point. In the treetop cabin that Ka-Zar and Shanna have leant to us, there's no television on the wall, no clock radio on the nightstand and no complimentary wi-fi connection. I wake up when I feel like it, or when Emma has decided that we've done enough sleeping. We spend the day doing whatever we feel like, even if that's nothing at all. I fall asleep when I'm tired, and it all starts over again.

( Time off for good behavior )

(392)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

253 - Awesome

It's a cliché, I know, for someone who's been into space to talk about how moved they were to look down on the planet Earth from orbit. The thing is that the cliché is completely true. From tens of thousands of miles above the surface, you realize that no satellite image and no computer-generated rendition can match the enormity and beauty of our world.

The first thing every astronaut mentions is that from space, the world has no borders. All you see are the continents and the features that nature has put there, not the imaginary lines we humans made up.

Which isn't to say you can't see people's handiwork on the Earth, though. Over there, the wandering white line is the Great Wall of China. And over here, that bright, blue-white pinpoint of light is the Luxor hotel in Las Vegas. And on the night side, you can find any major city in the world by watching how the lights of thousands and millions of windows and street lamps condense.

It really is, in the most traditional and positive sense of the word, awesome. To be able to see our planet as a single world gives me hope that people will be able to share that vision someday without having to travel into space to see it.

I know it will take time. Probably a very long time, I'm sure, but I think it can happen. We need people to teach others to look from a long way off like that. And we need people to do something about the kind of folks who want to hold on to the old, narrow and myopic view of things.

I try to make myself count in both those columns. And hopefully, make a difference in them, too.

(296)

OOC Note: This is a canon-based prompt. See disclaimer.

How old are we all again?