Post by Iceman on Jul 30, 2006 20:13:55 GMT -5
The Danger Room just wasn't cutting it. There was always too much going on to focus long enough on what Bobby wanted to focus on. There was always another whatever-the-hell-he-was-fighting coming up behind him. He still always had someone in the control room watching him, which was as good as saying that they didn't think he could make it on his own. Besides, one or two good hits usually blasted the virtual enemies enough to do them in. Bobby didn't need to work on killing ninjas; it wasn't very applicable to real life anyway. He needed to work on fighting fire.
So he'd found another way to work on his powers. He knew that there was an endless amount of woods behind the school, and he found a place not too far from school--But far enough that no one would hear him practicing. Or so he thought. But the sound of wood cracking echoes louder than he'd counted on, and if someone were in the gardens by the woods, they could have faintly heard the thundering cracks.
The small clearing looked like a blizzard had hit it. Trees lay left and right haphazardly, some still connected to their trunks by splinters, some tilting dangerously, their roots half pulled from the ground. Of these, some were completely covered in ice. Around the clearing were a few walls of ice. One end of the clearing was a muddy mess--when Bobby's ice had melted, it had turned the ground into a mudhole. He'd had to start knocking over trees at the other end to keep enough room to get a good range with his shots.
In the center of the clearing stood Bobby Drake. There was sweat on his forehead, and sweat making his shirt stick to his back and chest. He was breathing as hard as if he'd just run a mile. With a particularly heavy sigh, he dropped his arms. The stupid tree refused to break. It had been pissing him off all morning.
"You ever consider any other forms of attack?" A rough voice said from the tree directly behind Bobby.
Logan , the Wolverine, was perched on a branch halfway up the tree. An easy climb for someone with claws of his nature, though without them an woodsman of his caliber would've managed just fine. His faded jeans and flannel shirt seemed perfectly at home in this setting, and he looked more a beast than a man as he blended with his environment.
"You shoot pure cold, ice, I suppose, but more cold. You freeze things. Have you ever tried any other forms? Spikes or shards of Ice? Something with penetrating power?"
Not that this would help against the solid oak that was so steadfastly defending Bobby's attack, currently, but still - the situation begged the question.
When he first heard a voice coming from somewhere behind him, Bobby whipped around and searched for the person they were coming from. After searching at ground level and seeing no one, his eyes fell on someone sitting in a tree. Logan, looking a bit, well, primal. Bobby looked down at the ground, with a guilty expression, as though expecting to be yelled at. But at the same time, he wasn't sure if he would be. Logan wasn't really like the other adults there; he was much more laid-back. And yet he was the most intense guy Bobby had ever met.
"Uh, I can do kind of…chunks of ice," he started, unsure how to explain it. "Like a hailstorm?" That was what he'd always called it in his mind-His Hailstorm. "That's in blasts, and then there's the beam, which is continuous." He paused for a moment, wiping his forehead with his arm as he thought. "I guess the hail could penetrate, but it's big chunks so it mostly just smashes."
As with any aspect of his powers, Bobby hadn't tried to see how big or how fast the hail could get. He'd just assumed that that was as good as they'd get, and he'd become quite frustrated when they didn't do enough damage.
"What kind of control do you have over the shape of the hail? Can you alter it's shape, or can it only be natural?"
Logan seemed honestly interested, and seemed perfectly at home where he was – this was likely due to the fact that he had respect enough not to interrupt training.
"I only ask because you'll have more damaging potential if you could hurl something sharp. Like Ice-cicles. Hail is bludgeoning trama, an icecicle could penetrate light armor or put someone down a lot quicker."
"Uh...I don't know," Bobby said, pondering Logan's question. "I can make different shapes, so I don't see why I couldn't shoot them."
Logan 's use of 'bludgeoning trauma' and 'putting someone down' made Bobby slightly uneasy at the thought, but he brushed it off. He wasn't sure if Logan was trying to give him suggestions or if he was...evaluating him, or something. There were times when he felt like Logan was Rogue's over-protective Dad--Only one who didn't need a shotgun to tell you you'd better not hurt their girl. Just his own bones.
But it wasn't that simple. Bobby also saw Logan as the coolest guy around. He was unbelievably tough.
"I was just...Sick of the Danger Room," he said in explanation of why he'd decided to go out in the woods and tear trees apart. "When am I going to need to fight ninjas in real life? I mean, what if I'm up against someone with some kind of power of electricity? Or--fire?"
His latter example seemed to hang in the air, making him feel all too open to Logan's watchful eyes. He quickly fumbled to cover it up. "Or...Super strength...Or any number of things." Bobby looked away from where Logan sat in the branches of the tree, wondering if he'd just made it all too clear why he was really out there in the middle of the woods.
"Tearin' up tree's ain't going to help you learn to fight Pyro, Iceman." He said, specifically using his call sign as a sign of respect; A show that out here they were both X-Men. At Alcatraz Bobby had fought beside Wolverine and definitely proved his mettle. He was a man now.
"Unless you come across a guy who's power is to turn into a tree, this is only teaching you you've got a career in logging." He said, not un-kindly. "However…"
Wolverine leapt from his spot, falling thirty feet and landing in a crouch. Standing, he looked more feral than ever before. Then the claws came out.
*SNIKT*
"I suggest you defend yourself, Iceman. I'm going to stab you." He said, quite seriously, and charged directly at Iceman, deftly moving over fallen logs like he was running on flat territory.
Bobby looked back at Logan as he jumped to the ground. If always took him a moment to remember that nothing really hurt Logan, so he was always surprised for one second when he did something like jump from a height of thirty feet and land on his feet like some kind of cat. The look in his eyes when he stood was fierce, and Bobby found himself unnerved by it. But it wasn't until his claws slid from his hands that Bobby realized what Wolverine was doing.
His heart gripped with fear and his eyes widened as the Wolverine raced toward him. He took a few steps back as Logan quickly closed the distance. He didn't even consider the possibility that Logan was bluffing--The look in his eyes was hard truth.
Bobby's mind jumped to work. He was much better at long-range fighting--He was not much of a match in a fistfight for anyone who had any experience in fighting, and Wolverine was the fiercest fighter he'd ever seen. He had to keep the Wolverine as far back from him as possible. He sent a volley of ice chunks at Logan, his only trust in himself being his impeccable aim, even at a distance. Of course, he couldn't direct the ice to the left of right once it left his hands, so if Logan moved out of the way it would miss him. But it was moving incredibly fast--Bobby wanted to stop Wolverine as far from him as possible.
Just in case the first blast did miss, Bobby sent two more, backing away as he did. He realized with a sickening feeling that whatever he did to Wolverine would only keep him down for a few seconds.
'Shit!'
Wolverine barely skirted the first volley of ice, ducking low and looming a bit to the side, but a pelt of ice pieces pelted his shoulder and back, stinging like a rain of tack-hammers, and burning the skin there with cold. A large piece hit the side of his head with a metallic *DUNK!* and broke into pieces. It didn't even stagger the man, who's skull was protected by impenetrable adamantium.
Logan , however, was glad to see Iceman had produced a second wave right on top of the first, which was a smart way to do it. A continual beam had a consistency to it that was avoidable, but a surprise second volley just behind the initial was apt to take anyone off guard.
This one he avoided entirely, though, but only because he had to sacrifice his momentum. He leapt high and to the side, the volley of ice spraying past him. Twisting in the air, he caught a half-fallen tree with his claws and spun on it almost like a gymnast, landing on his feet – and was instantly back into a charge.
"You'll have to do better than icey rocks, bub!" He roared as he rapidly began to close the distance...
Seeing that his hail wasn't good enough, Bobby lifted his hand waist-high. He concentrated on what Logan had said earlier about icicles, and as he closed his hands he felt the ice in each one. Tearing his eyes away from Logan even as he became dangerously close, Bobby saw that it wasn't sharp enough. He cursed out loud and threw them to the ground, then stepped back, bracing himself with one leg in front and the other foot digging into the ground behind him.
He put his hands up, palms out, and drew on as much moisture as was in the air around him to send a continual line of thick ice straight at Wolverine's head. This he wouldn't be able to dodge so easily; it was much thicker. As he looked above the ice to watch it hit it's mark, he thought about what his next step would be if the Wolverine came within a few feet of him.
Like screaming 'uncle'.
This attack was nearly unavoidable. The spray of cold, stinging ice was such that no amount of fancy footwork could oppose it. It was veritably liquid, and as soon at it hit flesh, it immediately began to freeze the moisture in the skin.
Wolverine knew that the power this kid had was something to definitely be wary of. There seemed to be little limit to it, a veritable well of surging cold…
At first Logan did try to fight, of course. He went to side-step, but knew it was too late, so he brought his claws up in a grid pattern before his head. The Ice struck home, a lot of it sheening off of the claws, but freezing the air around him. In a matter of a few seconds, the jet of cold was creating a semi-dome of frozen moisture around him, and he was being encased…. It was as if someone had put half a giant boulder of ice in the middle of the downed trees and mud, ice-cicles hanging sideways off of the other side…
Nothing moved within it.
When Bobby saw what had happened, he lowered his hands. They fell limply to his sides, and he stared at the dome of ice. He felt a surge of triumph as he saw that Logan had been stopped in his tracks. He moved cautiously toward him, and stopping in front of him, tapped the ice in front of him. He was preoccupied with wondering if he'd need to get Logan out of it. There was the additional concern that the cold may have simply killed the savage fellow. Bobby sincerely doubted that much could actually kill Wolverine, but the fear was still there.
All too late, Bobby heard the cracking of sticks behind him, and spun on his feet just in time to see Logan emerge from the swampy mess, completely covered in mud and brush. The man looked like death itself coming for Iceman, and his claws were there with a blinding, ferocious speed.
The fear of impending death, for Logan definitely looked like he was a split-second away from killing Bobby on the spot, and the complete adrenaline of the moment seemed to take over for an instant – and Iceman reacted instinctively. His mind had been lingering on the shards that Logan had been talking about, and now it seemed they were there without his say-so. His hands jerked up in a flash, and the shards flew from his finger tips.
It was too late. Wolverine had his fist an inch from Bobby's throat, an extendible claw on either side, but no middle claw (for that one would be THROUGH the throat, he knew.) Still, Iceman could see the three razor sharp icecicles jutting from Logan's chest and stomach.
The savage look faded from Logan's eyes, and was replaced by something at least slightly softer: Something similar to pride. Of course, then he collapsed.
The fear Bobby felt with Logan's claws at his neck nearly rivaled the fear he'd felt at Alcatraz, when he'd never been faced with death so closely save for the confrontation with John, during which he'd had so much anger coursing through his veins that he'd numbed himself from the fear. That fear faded a notch when Logan fell backwards onto the ground. Bobby instinctively dodged back, his hand flying to his neck as he stared at Logan.
As with every time he'd seen Logan be mortally wounded, fear and sadness struck him for a few moments. He quickly remembered Logan's power, and edged around him to his side as he waited for him to recover. He stayed out of arm's reach, though, in case Logan did not consider the fight over. Licking his lips nervously, he finally broke the silence.
"....Logan?"
Wolverine merely stayed slumped on his knees, half sunk in the muddy soup for almost a minute... then the shards slowly began to slide out of his skin. Bloody, they fell into the muddy water below.
" Ughh..." He managed, staggering slowly to his feet. After a moment he seemed to remember where he was, and nodded to Bobby.
" You did it, kid. That was an effective attack... unfortunately, it came only when you were scared for your life. You gotta be able to call it up whenever you need it." He looked down at the holes in his flannel shirt. "And you need to not be so soft. You had me there, ice-cubed, and you were too worried about it. I told you to defend your life, and you were worried about me? All you needed to worry about was how to put me down."
Bobby listened closely to Logan's words, nodding somewhat sheepishly as Logan pointed out his mistakes. It was just hard for him to constantly remember that he could do whatever to Logan and it wouldn't phase him. "I guess...I mean, I've just never...put anybody down," he said, inching around the harsher term for it.
He corrected himself quickly. "I mean, I have, I guess, but I've never seen it happen," He wasn't sure if his headbutting John had killed him, but he doubted it. But either way, John and all of the people Bobby had knocked out or otherwise incapacitated at Alcatraz had been disintegrated by The Phoenix. Which was because he had left them there. He wasn't sure which ones had stayed unconscious long enough to be killed, and which ones had woken up and gotten out alive. Including John. It was an uneasy thought, to not know if his once-best friend and now enemy was alive or dead.
"Whats it like?" The words came suddenly from Bobby's lips, words he hadn't meant to ask aloud. He looked at Logan warily, curiously. "To die?" Bobby wasn't sure if Logan ever truly died and then came back, but he knew Logan should have died many times over and had come closer than anyone Bobby knew to death.
Logan seemed somewhat taken aback, a small frown creasing more than a couple lines in his face. He'd never really, actually died before, but he'd come close enough. He'd gone under more than a few times, and were it not for his regeneration, he would've indeed been dead many times over.
"Don't know, never been dead." He said, pulling himself out of the pit of mud, and walking back towards the edge of the clearing. He half turned back to Iceman. "Though before I go under, when my heart would normally stop… I feel cold. Even without the ice. Cold and very, very tired. The energy of my body seems like it seeps completely out of me… but for me, it comes jerking back. Like being splashed with water."
He thought a moment, then added: "Depending on the injury, it really doesn't hurt that bad… but I tell ya, it's still not something you want to go through. So don't go getting' yourself killed. Kill instead, if need be. It happens, bub. Just remember, sometimes you won't have the time to be terrified… you need to learn to finish the job before it gets that close."
With that, Logan crossed the barrier into the rest of the forest, and began to work his way back to the mansion.
So he'd found another way to work on his powers. He knew that there was an endless amount of woods behind the school, and he found a place not too far from school--But far enough that no one would hear him practicing. Or so he thought. But the sound of wood cracking echoes louder than he'd counted on, and if someone were in the gardens by the woods, they could have faintly heard the thundering cracks.
The small clearing looked like a blizzard had hit it. Trees lay left and right haphazardly, some still connected to their trunks by splinters, some tilting dangerously, their roots half pulled from the ground. Of these, some were completely covered in ice. Around the clearing were a few walls of ice. One end of the clearing was a muddy mess--when Bobby's ice had melted, it had turned the ground into a mudhole. He'd had to start knocking over trees at the other end to keep enough room to get a good range with his shots.
In the center of the clearing stood Bobby Drake. There was sweat on his forehead, and sweat making his shirt stick to his back and chest. He was breathing as hard as if he'd just run a mile. With a particularly heavy sigh, he dropped his arms. The stupid tree refused to break. It had been pissing him off all morning.
"You ever consider any other forms of attack?" A rough voice said from the tree directly behind Bobby.
Logan , the Wolverine, was perched on a branch halfway up the tree. An easy climb for someone with claws of his nature, though without them an woodsman of his caliber would've managed just fine. His faded jeans and flannel shirt seemed perfectly at home in this setting, and he looked more a beast than a man as he blended with his environment.
"You shoot pure cold, ice, I suppose, but more cold. You freeze things. Have you ever tried any other forms? Spikes or shards of Ice? Something with penetrating power?"
Not that this would help against the solid oak that was so steadfastly defending Bobby's attack, currently, but still - the situation begged the question.
When he first heard a voice coming from somewhere behind him, Bobby whipped around and searched for the person they were coming from. After searching at ground level and seeing no one, his eyes fell on someone sitting in a tree. Logan, looking a bit, well, primal. Bobby looked down at the ground, with a guilty expression, as though expecting to be yelled at. But at the same time, he wasn't sure if he would be. Logan wasn't really like the other adults there; he was much more laid-back. And yet he was the most intense guy Bobby had ever met.
"Uh, I can do kind of…chunks of ice," he started, unsure how to explain it. "Like a hailstorm?" That was what he'd always called it in his mind-His Hailstorm. "That's in blasts, and then there's the beam, which is continuous." He paused for a moment, wiping his forehead with his arm as he thought. "I guess the hail could penetrate, but it's big chunks so it mostly just smashes."
As with any aspect of his powers, Bobby hadn't tried to see how big or how fast the hail could get. He'd just assumed that that was as good as they'd get, and he'd become quite frustrated when they didn't do enough damage.
"What kind of control do you have over the shape of the hail? Can you alter it's shape, or can it only be natural?"
Logan seemed honestly interested, and seemed perfectly at home where he was – this was likely due to the fact that he had respect enough not to interrupt training.
"I only ask because you'll have more damaging potential if you could hurl something sharp. Like Ice-cicles. Hail is bludgeoning trama, an icecicle could penetrate light armor or put someone down a lot quicker."
"Uh...I don't know," Bobby said, pondering Logan's question. "I can make different shapes, so I don't see why I couldn't shoot them."
Logan 's use of 'bludgeoning trauma' and 'putting someone down' made Bobby slightly uneasy at the thought, but he brushed it off. He wasn't sure if Logan was trying to give him suggestions or if he was...evaluating him, or something. There were times when he felt like Logan was Rogue's over-protective Dad--Only one who didn't need a shotgun to tell you you'd better not hurt their girl. Just his own bones.
But it wasn't that simple. Bobby also saw Logan as the coolest guy around. He was unbelievably tough.
"I was just...Sick of the Danger Room," he said in explanation of why he'd decided to go out in the woods and tear trees apart. "When am I going to need to fight ninjas in real life? I mean, what if I'm up against someone with some kind of power of electricity? Or--fire?"
His latter example seemed to hang in the air, making him feel all too open to Logan's watchful eyes. He quickly fumbled to cover it up. "Or...Super strength...Or any number of things." Bobby looked away from where Logan sat in the branches of the tree, wondering if he'd just made it all too clear why he was really out there in the middle of the woods.
"Tearin' up tree's ain't going to help you learn to fight Pyro, Iceman." He said, specifically using his call sign as a sign of respect; A show that out here they were both X-Men. At Alcatraz Bobby had fought beside Wolverine and definitely proved his mettle. He was a man now.
"Unless you come across a guy who's power is to turn into a tree, this is only teaching you you've got a career in logging." He said, not un-kindly. "However…"
Wolverine leapt from his spot, falling thirty feet and landing in a crouch. Standing, he looked more feral than ever before. Then the claws came out.
*SNIKT*
"I suggest you defend yourself, Iceman. I'm going to stab you." He said, quite seriously, and charged directly at Iceman, deftly moving over fallen logs like he was running on flat territory.
Bobby looked back at Logan as he jumped to the ground. If always took him a moment to remember that nothing really hurt Logan, so he was always surprised for one second when he did something like jump from a height of thirty feet and land on his feet like some kind of cat. The look in his eyes when he stood was fierce, and Bobby found himself unnerved by it. But it wasn't until his claws slid from his hands that Bobby realized what Wolverine was doing.
His heart gripped with fear and his eyes widened as the Wolverine raced toward him. He took a few steps back as Logan quickly closed the distance. He didn't even consider the possibility that Logan was bluffing--The look in his eyes was hard truth.
Bobby's mind jumped to work. He was much better at long-range fighting--He was not much of a match in a fistfight for anyone who had any experience in fighting, and Wolverine was the fiercest fighter he'd ever seen. He had to keep the Wolverine as far back from him as possible. He sent a volley of ice chunks at Logan, his only trust in himself being his impeccable aim, even at a distance. Of course, he couldn't direct the ice to the left of right once it left his hands, so if Logan moved out of the way it would miss him. But it was moving incredibly fast--Bobby wanted to stop Wolverine as far from him as possible.
Just in case the first blast did miss, Bobby sent two more, backing away as he did. He realized with a sickening feeling that whatever he did to Wolverine would only keep him down for a few seconds.
'Shit!'
Wolverine barely skirted the first volley of ice, ducking low and looming a bit to the side, but a pelt of ice pieces pelted his shoulder and back, stinging like a rain of tack-hammers, and burning the skin there with cold. A large piece hit the side of his head with a metallic *DUNK!* and broke into pieces. It didn't even stagger the man, who's skull was protected by impenetrable adamantium.
Logan , however, was glad to see Iceman had produced a second wave right on top of the first, which was a smart way to do it. A continual beam had a consistency to it that was avoidable, but a surprise second volley just behind the initial was apt to take anyone off guard.
This one he avoided entirely, though, but only because he had to sacrifice his momentum. He leapt high and to the side, the volley of ice spraying past him. Twisting in the air, he caught a half-fallen tree with his claws and spun on it almost like a gymnast, landing on his feet – and was instantly back into a charge.
"You'll have to do better than icey rocks, bub!" He roared as he rapidly began to close the distance...
Seeing that his hail wasn't good enough, Bobby lifted his hand waist-high. He concentrated on what Logan had said earlier about icicles, and as he closed his hands he felt the ice in each one. Tearing his eyes away from Logan even as he became dangerously close, Bobby saw that it wasn't sharp enough. He cursed out loud and threw them to the ground, then stepped back, bracing himself with one leg in front and the other foot digging into the ground behind him.
He put his hands up, palms out, and drew on as much moisture as was in the air around him to send a continual line of thick ice straight at Wolverine's head. This he wouldn't be able to dodge so easily; it was much thicker. As he looked above the ice to watch it hit it's mark, he thought about what his next step would be if the Wolverine came within a few feet of him.
Like screaming 'uncle'.
This attack was nearly unavoidable. The spray of cold, stinging ice was such that no amount of fancy footwork could oppose it. It was veritably liquid, and as soon at it hit flesh, it immediately began to freeze the moisture in the skin.
Wolverine knew that the power this kid had was something to definitely be wary of. There seemed to be little limit to it, a veritable well of surging cold…
At first Logan did try to fight, of course. He went to side-step, but knew it was too late, so he brought his claws up in a grid pattern before his head. The Ice struck home, a lot of it sheening off of the claws, but freezing the air around him. In a matter of a few seconds, the jet of cold was creating a semi-dome of frozen moisture around him, and he was being encased…. It was as if someone had put half a giant boulder of ice in the middle of the downed trees and mud, ice-cicles hanging sideways off of the other side…
Nothing moved within it.
When Bobby saw what had happened, he lowered his hands. They fell limply to his sides, and he stared at the dome of ice. He felt a surge of triumph as he saw that Logan had been stopped in his tracks. He moved cautiously toward him, and stopping in front of him, tapped the ice in front of him. He was preoccupied with wondering if he'd need to get Logan out of it. There was the additional concern that the cold may have simply killed the savage fellow. Bobby sincerely doubted that much could actually kill Wolverine, but the fear was still there.
All too late, Bobby heard the cracking of sticks behind him, and spun on his feet just in time to see Logan emerge from the swampy mess, completely covered in mud and brush. The man looked like death itself coming for Iceman, and his claws were there with a blinding, ferocious speed.
The fear of impending death, for Logan definitely looked like he was a split-second away from killing Bobby on the spot, and the complete adrenaline of the moment seemed to take over for an instant – and Iceman reacted instinctively. His mind had been lingering on the shards that Logan had been talking about, and now it seemed they were there without his say-so. His hands jerked up in a flash, and the shards flew from his finger tips.
It was too late. Wolverine had his fist an inch from Bobby's throat, an extendible claw on either side, but no middle claw (for that one would be THROUGH the throat, he knew.) Still, Iceman could see the three razor sharp icecicles jutting from Logan's chest and stomach.
The savage look faded from Logan's eyes, and was replaced by something at least slightly softer: Something similar to pride. Of course, then he collapsed.
The fear Bobby felt with Logan's claws at his neck nearly rivaled the fear he'd felt at Alcatraz, when he'd never been faced with death so closely save for the confrontation with John, during which he'd had so much anger coursing through his veins that he'd numbed himself from the fear. That fear faded a notch when Logan fell backwards onto the ground. Bobby instinctively dodged back, his hand flying to his neck as he stared at Logan.
As with every time he'd seen Logan be mortally wounded, fear and sadness struck him for a few moments. He quickly remembered Logan's power, and edged around him to his side as he waited for him to recover. He stayed out of arm's reach, though, in case Logan did not consider the fight over. Licking his lips nervously, he finally broke the silence.
"....Logan?"
Wolverine merely stayed slumped on his knees, half sunk in the muddy soup for almost a minute... then the shards slowly began to slide out of his skin. Bloody, they fell into the muddy water below.
" Ughh..." He managed, staggering slowly to his feet. After a moment he seemed to remember where he was, and nodded to Bobby.
" You did it, kid. That was an effective attack... unfortunately, it came only when you were scared for your life. You gotta be able to call it up whenever you need it." He looked down at the holes in his flannel shirt. "And you need to not be so soft. You had me there, ice-cubed, and you were too worried about it. I told you to defend your life, and you were worried about me? All you needed to worry about was how to put me down."
Bobby listened closely to Logan's words, nodding somewhat sheepishly as Logan pointed out his mistakes. It was just hard for him to constantly remember that he could do whatever to Logan and it wouldn't phase him. "I guess...I mean, I've just never...put anybody down," he said, inching around the harsher term for it.
He corrected himself quickly. "I mean, I have, I guess, but I've never seen it happen," He wasn't sure if his headbutting John had killed him, but he doubted it. But either way, John and all of the people Bobby had knocked out or otherwise incapacitated at Alcatraz had been disintegrated by The Phoenix. Which was because he had left them there. He wasn't sure which ones had stayed unconscious long enough to be killed, and which ones had woken up and gotten out alive. Including John. It was an uneasy thought, to not know if his once-best friend and now enemy was alive or dead.
"Whats it like?" The words came suddenly from Bobby's lips, words he hadn't meant to ask aloud. He looked at Logan warily, curiously. "To die?" Bobby wasn't sure if Logan ever truly died and then came back, but he knew Logan should have died many times over and had come closer than anyone Bobby knew to death.
Logan seemed somewhat taken aback, a small frown creasing more than a couple lines in his face. He'd never really, actually died before, but he'd come close enough. He'd gone under more than a few times, and were it not for his regeneration, he would've indeed been dead many times over.
"Don't know, never been dead." He said, pulling himself out of the pit of mud, and walking back towards the edge of the clearing. He half turned back to Iceman. "Though before I go under, when my heart would normally stop… I feel cold. Even without the ice. Cold and very, very tired. The energy of my body seems like it seeps completely out of me… but for me, it comes jerking back. Like being splashed with water."
He thought a moment, then added: "Depending on the injury, it really doesn't hurt that bad… but I tell ya, it's still not something you want to go through. So don't go getting' yourself killed. Kill instead, if need be. It happens, bub. Just remember, sometimes you won't have the time to be terrified… you need to learn to finish the job before it gets that close."
With that, Logan crossed the barrier into the rest of the forest, and began to work his way back to the mansion.
