((Continued for Jude from Want to Know Your Future?))

Jude was pretty sure he'd just gotten hit by a truck full of crazy. He felt dazed and just a little bit... off.

She... uh, she didn't do what Jude expected her to. Like. Ever. He stood for a moment scratching the back of his neck before he had to shake himself out of it. He had to find his com and cancel the ping. He hadn't needed the backup. He shouldn't have tricked her into pushing it in the first place.

The Frenchman tucked his wallet into his back pocket and left the curb to head toward the alley. He nudged a broken bottle aside with his shoe. His thin, canvas shoe. That seemed dangerous. He needed a freaking hazmat suit back here. Between the dumpster sludge and the general ooziness of the ground, he didn't want to be there. It was, however, where he'd seen his communication badge bounce.

Eventually, Jude found it resting in a puddle of warm soda, nestled beneath some thankfully unopened ketchup packages. He picked it up with as little physical contact as he could manage. The button was jammed. He turned it and tried to click or unclick the button, but the little LED kept blipping. Something brown and syrupy dripped from it.

Ugh. Jude juggled the com into his shirt, polished it dry, but even then the button wouldn't un-mash. Okay. So he stuffed the com into his pocket and went to double check on the civilians since he still had DocProf's healing as his power.

”Don’t land just get lower!” Sam yelled at the new headmaster as the possible clone muttered something back after Sam yelled at him. They didn’t have time to land and he didn’t have time to keep an eye on the new headmaster. Sam only had one eye and it was going to be used tracking the distress call. Sure he was a little buzzed from earlier but that was why he had the headmaster fly… or one of his clones. Sam was starting to doubt there was an original at all but just self-replicating clone even though he was told the contrary during his first day during the staff meeting. Ruddy was nice, odd both he and his clones but Sam liked that about him.

”I’ll call you on the comms when I find out what’s going on.” Sam put his Bluetooth in and then hit the bay hatch the wind rushing under it as the belly of the X-Jet opened up as the ramp lowered. “Wait! Sam!!!!” Sam turned before jumping and looked to one of the clones (he was sure of it now), “You have to say something cool!” Sam blinked as his Bluetooth repeated the words. ”Whoever forced one of us to make the call better be ready for a Cold Front!” Sam ice his body over and fell backward after getting the thumbs up from Rudy.

As Sam freefell in between the buildings spotting the lone-kid in the alleyway his sixth sense activated while the ground sped closer. The Ice Mutant exhaled and pushed a cold front forward instead of all around him (like he normally did because he was focused on saving his teammate) and the body below him took on a low bright red, which got brighter the closer he got.

Sam’s ear buzzed as the clone chimed in, “I like the execution, the smack talk could have been better. I’ll pass it along to the others and let you know what we think.” Sam ignored the comment and willed an ice slide to form under his feet, which in turn slowed his impact with the ground. Before he landed Sam raised both hands and shot beams of ice around who he could tell now was Jude and started to form an ice dome that was finished as soon as Sam landed and bent to a knee.

Now that they were both safe in the dome, ”Jude! What’s the issue?” Sam yelled as he pushed his sixth sense outwards around the dome to find the danger and the only reason Jude should have pressed that button.

"Oh. My. God." Could things get any more embarrassing? Jude was about to talk to the people around, make sure things were kosher, give out a little healing to leave a better impression of the whole situation and then whooooooosh. X-jet. Worse, the X-jet air dropped the freaking head of the X-men.

The dread pirate Sam sealed Jude up into an inescapable snowglobe. Probably so he could beat him up without others bearing witness.

> ”Jude! What’s the issue?”

"No issue." Jude was aware that his accent was thicker than usual. He'd just spent, what, an hour or so speaking only French? It was a chore to change back to this ugly germanic garbage of a language. And now he was feeling stupid for the whole issue that he'd just gone through.

"The issue was here. I tricked the issue into calling for help for me then the issue dumped my com into a cruddy soda and it won't turn off even though the issue has probably made a clean getaway." Which was, admittedly, due to his contribution. Still. Jude could cross his arms and be grumpy about it.

Sam stood up straight in stead of having a lowered stance one he normally had when he was about to get into a fight. ”…. No issue.” Sam repeated as the air in the dome grew colder. He knew of Jude’s powers but he hadn’t had a chance to try to understand them yet. ”…. ****.” Sam cursed as he gumbled into his Bluetooth.

One of the clones was on the other end ready to dispatch all the other X-men if needed. No doubt Maya/Gawain would have been on the way right now too. ”Thing Two did you hear that?” Sam said clear irritation in his voice. “You don’t have to yell, and it’s thing four thank you. I’ll notify the others to stand down.” Sam blinked then turned to Jude.

”Give me your communicator…” Sam said his hand outstretched for it. He wasn’t asking for it he was telling Jude to give it to him. Sam just hoped the kid would comply. ”What ‘was’ the issue then?” he was asking now hoping it was at least a good reason it was pressed. If Jude was in danger Sam would have been less harsh but if it was to just see the response time of the X’s Sam had some other plans for Jude.

Giving Cold Steel his com had to feel like a cop giving up his badge. Was that how he'd meant it to feel? Jude fished the little beeper-like bit of tech out of his back pocket and tried to channel Ghost and her positivity. They were on the same side. Surely he'd made mistakes before. Heck, from what Jude heard that was just about all Sammy boy was doing these days.

So he handed it over.

> ”What ‘was’ the issue then?”

"Angry mutant hizzyfit." Jude went to one of the vehicles that was trapped in the dome with them and daintily grabbed at a crystal shard. It was lodged into the plastic bumper pretty good, though. Jude didn't want to grab it full on because it was also sharp. The copycat ended up worrying it back and forth while trying to fill the literally cold silence.

"A brat tried to skewer me and take my wallet. I managed to calm the situation. Kid freaked when the... You know, you guys aren't all that sneaky. And it was just one. Maybe could have gotten zem to ze Mansio- Oh!" The crystal came feel all of a sudden and Jude ended up taking a few steps backward and pinwheeling his arms in order to keep his balance.

Of course, pinwheeling your arms while holding onto a slick, cool bit of crystal wasn't really the best way to hold onto it. So he couldn't be held responsible for the fact that he'd pretty much just thrown a razor sharp crystal of stabbiness at his team leader.

If he could have, Jude would have shouted 'oh fudge' in slow motion as he watched the shard's flight path. Unfortunately that kind of thing only worked out in movies.

Sam took the communicator as it was handed to him. At first he wasn’t sure why it was so easy for someone to take the communicator from the Frenchman and press the button but he just got his answer. ”You had someone press the distress beacon for a pickpocketing?” Sam asked staring at the kid ignoring that he said someone was trying to skewer him. That was part of the job, that’s why you trained so you didn’t get trained but then Sam was used to more danger than some of the other X-‘s on the team so he tried to respond the way someone else would. WWGD? Sam looked for a baseball bat of a computer keyboard but didn’t see any.

Sam looked from the communicator then fell backward as a crystal imbedded itself in his shoulder. Staggering backwards in shock Sam looked down and winced. The air got colder and the dome got darker in response to Sam getting stabbed. Honestly that was the fourth flesh wound on that side of his body in a month. Should he go to Doc or go see Juliette? No he had to deal with the problem at hand.

Blood running down his other arm Sam’s good arm showed off Jude’s communicator as it was covered in ice then was shattered in Sam’s palm. The ice-mutant then waved his hand and the dome dissipated to reveal the daylight and the police that were now down the alleyway because they too got distress calls from the X-men when they were in the city. More paperwork. Sam grunted and pulled the crystal from his arm then looked at it. ”you mean you were worried about this happening?” the wound on his arm froze over sealing the blood in place till he could see someone. Luckily he was still pretty buzzed so the pain was manageable.

”You and I… were gonna have a talk.” Sam said as he walked towards Jude. ”Thing one get back to the mansion. I’ll catch up with you later.” Sam said his fists clenching the closer he walked towards Jude.

> ”You had someone press the distress beacon for a pickpocketing?”

"No." Jude waved his arms toward the odd crystal here or there. "Ze almost murder. Ze promise of more and possible indiscriminate murder." Crapcrapcrap. It was getting colder and... and he hadn't dodged the crystal that Jude had gestured with earlier. He hadn't dodged AT ALL. HE WAS BLEEDING AND LOOKING MURDEROUS. The teen wished he had a button to call the x-men back in his hand.

Because Sam brutally destroyed his right then and there.

Jude's jaw nearly fell off his face.

"What ze hell, man!" He could have dodged. Right? And... was that a slur in his speech that Jude detected? He balled his fists at his sides, anger meter filling more by the second. That had better be shock from injury slur. This had better be irritation from being called out. He had better not have shown up for a rescue mission like he showed up to the office.

In the span of a few heartbeats, the dome was gone. Sam was stalking toward him with his own balled fists. Was he seriously going to do something in front of all these cops? Jude would have told the boys in blue to take it on home, but Sam was the superior douche nozzle. That was his job.

A single pickpocket… the kid had a problem with a pickpocket. Granted the pickpocket had the ability to create sharp pointy objects out of crystals, but still. Clearly Jude needed some training on how to handle himself or situations better. Sam took a breath the closer he got and while he was tempted to punch the kid for stabbing him his hands unclenched and he put his hand on the kids shoulder. His angry face became one more relaxed as he decided what he was going to do for Jude. ”So… the cops will need an explanation as to why they were summoned. Faulty communicator.” was Sam’s simple response, because it was faulty it was broken now and shattered on the ground.

Sam waved to the cops pretending everything was fine shouted. ”Faulty equipment!” Sam was going to get chewed out later for this one. Communicators weren’t supposed to be faulty. They were supposed to be there in emergency situations were back-up was crucial to prevent someone from getting hurt. However, there were situations when they could go wrong. Sam grunted and patted Jude on the back hard to further explain as simply as possible what happened.

”No word of the pickpocket.” Sam whispered.

Okay so he did cringe a little when Cold Steel's hand came toward his face. But there wasn't any velocity behind it. In fact, he put his hand on Jude's shoulder like they were buddies or something.

Jude was still mad. Leader or not, he clearly didn't believe that Jude had done anything worthwhile here. Or ever. Would the X-man even let him have another com badge? Cold Steel looked eerily calm. The combo was jarring enough to take the edge off the copycat's anger and push him more toward wariness.

"Yeah. Sure." He spoke quietly so only Cold Steel could hear. "Lie to the cops. No big deal."

Aaand wariness was sliding fast into irritation. Jude ducked his shoulder out from under Sam's hand and went to approach the police in order to apologize. Apologies weren't his thing, but it seemed right for the situation and was a heck of a lot better than outright lying.

Jude was almost certain that if he'd mentioned that the pickpocket had been a girl and that she'd picked the wallet off the street instead of his pocket... man, there just wasn't anything that would manly up the situation enough for someone like Cold Steel to understand.

So he thanked the police or coming (whether they looked happy to be there or not) and apologized before offering to shake hands with anybody who would. No words explaining the crystals that had damaged Sam and a couple vehicles. And no words wasted on lies. It was the best he was gonna get.

Sam wasn’t in the mood for sarcasm so he let Jude do the talking and watched as none of the cops shook his hand they all left grumbling and irritated. Something he too wished he could do but now he had to babysit. Something he didn’t think he had to do unless he chose to do it with Rowan or some of the other mansion young’uns.

”Don’t know if you had plans for the rest of the day but you’re gonna cancel them. You and I, we got to talk. Gonna have a long talk about happened here and what went wrong. Because this wasn’t okay.” Sam said trying to not sound like a father, ”I’m sure you had your reasons why you did what you did so you are gonna explain it in detail to me back at the mansion. Alright?“

Sam shot a beam of ice under his feet and started to raise himself up, ”Meet me back at home. I’ll be waiting.” Sam slid off to the mansion already planning where they were going. Pressing his Bluetooth he called the headmaster, ”Number 2, refuel the jet for me. Yeah, I’ll be sober to fly…. Then why ask if I’m gonna be sober to fly?” Sam asked irritated as he moved closer to the mansion. ”Just have it fueled and ready to go.

When he got home Sam started to pack his survival gear, plus an extra bag because he wasn’t going to be the only one going away for a spell in the wilderness.

Was it just Jude, or were relations sucking more and more between the X's and the police? Maybe it was the robots. No mutant seemed to enjoy the robots. They'd sounded like a good idea on paper, at least.

> ”Don’t know if you had plans for the rest of the day but you’re gonna cancel them."

Must. Not. Roll. Eyes. Jude hadn't had any direct plans, but now he was tempted to make some on the fly. This wasn't okay? But showing up with stinky booze breath was?

Must. Not. Openly. Sass. Leader.

Okay. So opening his mouth was going to lead to bad things. Jude could feel it in his bones. Instead he pressed his lips together and nodded. Yeah. Suuuuuure. Jude would give the old pirate an explanation. Right after he got home. With no bus pass. And no car. And no money in his wallet.

Meanwhile Sam iced away, limber as a drunken pixie.

"Screw you, Icebeard!" Eh. Blackbeard hadn't felt insulting enough, but Icebeard was now feeling like a stretch. Jude kicked at a piece of broken curb to the tune of a couple police snickers. He should have stolen Cold Steel's power first, but Jude hated the heat-o-vision crud that came with it. And it was a little too late to get wings from Astrid.

Ugh. This whole situation was screwed up and embarrassing.

Jude got his bearings, stuffed his hands in his pockets, hunched in true teenage fashion, and started the long trudge home.

Sam shifted as he waited in his office wondering what took the kid so long to get back to the mansion. The longer he waited the more irritated he had become. Looking at the clock on the wall of his office, the ice mancer sighed then got up and went down to the jet to make sure it was fueled and ready to go.

A once over in the kids bag and Sam counted out everything he needed for the little survival excursion. The contents of the backpack included; water-purifying tablets, a life straw, one week of freeze-dried food ration, two space blankets, one large first-aid kit, two knives, one a survival and one a serrated a rain coat, water proof matches, one-thousand feet of para-cord a small book on knots and snares as well as a book of what to eat and what not to eat in the wild. There was a handful of other things in the pack as well but everything else in Sam’s mind was a luxury item. Sam also had a hand written note with a map in the smallest pocket as well.

The map was of the area he was going to leave Jude for a week. The map also had the pick up point of where they would be picked up. The note was a simple message in Sam’s best handwriting, ‘don’t die; in this bag there is everything you need to survive. The first thing you need to know is the rule of threes, ‘You can survive three minutes without air, three hours without shelter in a harsh environment, three days without water, and three weeks without food. I gave you a weeks worth of food, it can be turned into two weeks if you spread it out. I have also been here several times, so I know there is plenty of food and water if you know where to look. Make sure you have a shelter up before sundown or you will freeze and a fire started before sundown as well. It will keep the wolves at bay. Good luck, you will have a three free hits on me and your communicator waiting for you when you meet me at the randevu point. If you don’t get there by the end of the second week… good luck.’

The note was simple and straightforward in Sam’s mind and seeing as he wasn’t that close to Jude it would illustrate how caring Sam could be. He smirked and looked to the clone in the driver’s seat who sat at the ready. “You sure about this?” the clone asked still not sure if it was the greatest idea. ”He stabbed me, cried wolf essentially. He needs some toughening up. I’ll be keeping an eye on him. All the new recruits I’ve taken under my wing have done it. No one died yet and I don’t plan on having any do that any time soon.”

Sam went back to the entrance and waited for the Frenchman.

The Mansion gates stood firm, if slightly askew. He saw them from nearly a mile away since the land was more open and the buildings less tall and they taunted his sore calves the whole way home.

The heat had plastered his shirt to his body at key embarrassing points. Usually he would have stopped to shower, change shirts, or something, but the Frenchman's overwhelming need for ice water made him skip the stairs to the boy's hall and go straight for the kitchen.

Which took him past the administrative hall entrance.

Which meant a Ruddy clone was ready and waiting in ambush.

"Cold Steel is waiting for you in the hangar." Was enough to instantly transform Jude's heat-exhausted flop sweat into a cold terror kind of sweat.

Jude totally wasn't avoiding the hangar. He definitely had not accidentally or on purpose snuck onto the jet and triggered the weapon's system and then set the hangar on fire. In fact, he knew practically nothing about that event and really, really, really hoped that Cold Steel knew less than the nothing that Jude knew about it.

"He's going to kill me."

The Ruddy clone seemed to concur as he offered a sympathetic pat on the shoulder.

"It won't last forever."

Jude eyed the clone. Of course he would say that. He died and sprouted more of himself all the time. And Jude could do the same... But a real man would go and accept his fate. So if Jude wanted to officially step up as a team member and not slink away for all eternity, he had to go down there.

As much fun as it would be to let Cold Steel suffer through his untimely clone death, it'd just get awkward when the leader of the X's returned to find him not dead.

Ugh. Making grown up decisions was dumb.

So he put it off until after he went to guzzle a huge glass of water.

Properly hydrated, still disgustingly unbathed Jude made his way down to see Cold Steel about getting his replacement com badge. That's all this was. Formality. Right?

Turns out he missed Jude coming into the mansion. He ran into another clone of the headmaster and he had pointed him in the right direction of where to find Jude. Sam eventually made his way down to the hanger and appeared behind Jude. Sam let the kid feel his mutation before Sam made himself known. The cold air should have tipped him off but Sam patted Jude on the shoulder and walked past.

”Glad you could make it. Got a mission.” Sam lied to the kid making Jude more encouraged to step onto the jet once he was on it was all over from there so the ice-mancer just wanted to make sure he came on his own instead of him having to kidnap him. Sam doubted that work well for his image seeing as it wouldn’t have been the first time.

Sam walked further into the hanger then onto the jet and went straight for the co-piolit seat. He looked back to the power copier and asked, ”You know how to fly?”

The X-hall was quiet despite the Danger Room showing as In use. Jude jogged down past the lockers and into the hangar. He was expecting a slap in the face or maybe an ambush. What was there was silence. The Frenchman sipped the last of his water from his cup while trying not to spill the last bits of ice everywhere.

Jude felt the cold first, then the feeling of his powerful mutation, then the hand. Jude's ice was dislodged from the bottom of his cup and spilled down the front of his face and shirt. WHY DID COLD STEEL KEEP TOUCHING HIM?!

> ”Glad you could make it. Got a mission.”

He rubbed the excess moisture from his face and took a few quick steps through the ice mine field in order to catch up with Cold Steel. A mission? A mission meant he was not just carte blanche off the team. So a mission was good. Even if it was a suck mission, he'd done litter pick up and crap before. He could do it again. Jude found a workbench to stash his now empty cup on and he took the boarding stairs two at a time.

But, could he fly?

"Wings, yeah. Planes, no." Jude eyed the chair that Sam had left open. The chair. The one with the most switches and doodads. The one that Margo had maybe bumped into before she bumped into him and before his butt had chosen the perfect sequence to activate the weapons system.

Jude licked his lips. He looked at Cold Steel. He looked at the chair. This had to be a trap. But it was a well-baited trap and the Frenchman found himself sinking into the pilot chair's buttery leather depths. He put his hands on the steering... thing and eyed the buttons. He didn't bother with his safety harness since they probably weren't going anywhere.

"Why's this plane have weapons?" It wasn't like the buttons weren't clearly labeled or anything, now that it was day and there was no disco ball and no loud music.