The tenth day after Scott's return to active duty fell on a Saturday. It was a fortuitous trick of timing, because it was against the grain not only for Scott but school policy to cancel school for anything short of major emergencies, yet he could tell by the tension laid thick over the breakfast table like a heavy drop-cloth that the students would have been good for nothing but thinking ahead to the match today. Word traveled fast even around grounds as large as Xavier's school and Scott was fairly sure everyone down to the smallest and newly-enrolled had known about Storm's proposed duel with Cyclops before the end of the day she'd challenged him. Everything over the past ten days had been building up to this moment and the electric charge in the air, the way students glanced at him and grinned or dropped their eyes, the tense, excited whispers reflected the anticipation of today's major event.

Not that they'd get to watch. That privilege went to the X-Men, whose leadership was determined by this duel, and the judges.

As he got up from the breakfast table, finally giving up on finishing the remnants of salmon spinach frittata, a hand closed over his shoulder. Scott straightened, giving Bobby Drake a quizzical smile, then a quirk of his brows as Bobby seemed to struggle with the words.

"Good luck today," Drake told him at last, following it up with a firm nod. His jaw muscles jumped.

"Hopefully luck won't have anything to do with it, if I'm the right person to keep this job," Scott said, softening his words with a smile. "Thanks, Bobby. I appreciate it."

There was a touch of awe in Bobby's eyes when he gave him the nod and moved off to take Rogue by the crook of her arm, catching up to her on the way out of the dining hall.

No sooner had Scott picked up his plate than did another person clap him on the shoulder. It was followed by two enthusiastic pats, a hand on each shoulder, then the hands clamped.

"Are you stoked, brother?" Alex demanded, easing his grip before Scott could tell him to lay off. "Today's the day you beat Storm!"

"Thanks," Scott said dryly, elbowing his brother out of the way so he could take care of his plate before a wave of good luck wishes came his way. He'd gotten a lot of furtive looks around the breakfast table which had been leading him down the bitter path of suspecting he'd thrown down the gauntlet for the wrong cause. If what remained of the X-Men didn't want him...he'd dismissed that line of thought earlier with a particularly savage bite of breakfast. Running a precision underground military team wasn't a democracy.

Still, the team's opinion of him did matter, in the end. They had to trust him and he had to prove himself worthy of their trust. This, to him, was the first step to rebuilding it.

On the way to the kitchen, Peter Rasputin gave him a thumb's up. "Good luck, Cyclops." Scott managed to mutter thanks that sounded busy rather than perfunctory.

Brows raised, Scott craned his neck to regard his brother. "Did you pay them all off, or something?"

Alex lifted both hands, returning a look that infused as much wounded innocence as it did a cocky sense of satisfaction. "Scott. Now you're just being paranoid. What, your team can't wish you luck on the big day?"

A smile tugged at Scott's mouth that he kept from fully forming as he deposited his scraped-clean dish in the sink. It was someone else's day to do them, though it would probably take a stern reminder from one of the teachers later that day. He turned, leaning against the sink and regarding his brother. "Calling it the 'big day' implies there's something to celebrate already," he said.

"Yeah, and everyone will when you win."

Scott gave a shake of his head, passing Alex with a clap to his brother's shoulder and toeing the threshold of the kitchen. There were a few faces he hadn't seen that morning, and one that he'd missed. We'll see about that, he thought with a touch of cynicism. Xavier had held everyone's popular regard. All he felt sure of was his capabilities to administer the school's concerns and lead the X-Men.

Then again, there had been enough tension these past few weeks that the kids, and the team, would probably cheer no matter who won, just so long as the matter was settled. And that was a grim thought of another kind.

There was one face he hadn't seen during the long walk and now he let himself acknowledge he was looking for it. Wolverine wasn't a judge, he was his coach, and Scott had expected...well, tell the truth he wasn't sure what he had expected. Last night hadn't been a promise so much as a challenge. Now he headed for the Danger Room with his brother by his side and they passed through a contingent of expectant faces. All of them were waiting for the outcome, and to his own surprise the majority looked at him with a hope writ large in their eyes that Scott hadn't expected to see.

A slim white-haired figure was already waiting at the outer airlock-type door of the Danger Room as Scott approached. He allowed himself a pained moment to wonder how it had come to this.

"Scott," Storm acknowledged with a lift of her chin. Her eyes blazed in her lovely dark face, unreachable as a chill cloudless sky.

"Ororo," Scott responded in kind.

"Let's do it," she said, and her tone was implying, let's get it over with. She was already changed into the close-fitting black leather that made up the X-Men uniform. It was either an attempt to put her on superior psychological footing - there and ready first - or she really was just that eager.

He jerked his head in a quick nod and entered the outer door.

Inside, the locker room was partitioned into a couple of different sections: changing areas for both men and women, then an open space before the inner cycling door that Scott thought of as the staging area. A half-circle of people stood fanned out in that open space. Lorna Dane lifted a hand in a brief wave, the hint of a smile touching her full mouth. Taller than the rest, Hank regarded Scott and Ororo's entrance with calm, unblinking yellow eyes. Beside the two of them stood Forge, Xavier's old friend and an amazing hand with machinery -- it was he who'd come up with the technology for the holographic training gymnasium they called the Danger Room. Last, standing behind and a little ways apart from them, stood Wolverine, his gaze cast off to the side. He didn't look up as either of them entered.

"Get changed," Alec told him, slapping him on the shoulder. "See you on the other side, bro." The door closed behind him with a heavy shuffing noise and Scott hurried to the men's side.

Scott scrambled into his uniform fast as though he were getting ready for a mission. It helped put him in the right frame of mind -- he was on his way to a fight, after all.

When Scott returned to the group, Logan was still there. Scott had been half-expecting the man to melt into the background or disappear for the upstairs observation booth where the rest of the X-Men were no doubt already waiting.

"Now that you're both here, o exigent combatants," Hank began without preamble, "we'll begin with the pre-duel briefing. We the judges have heard your preferences and conferred amongst ourselves and are unanimous in allowing to you the use of your mutant powers as you see fit. It is, after all, only meet given this is a contest to determine the leadership of our underground mutant task force."

Lorna took a half-step forward, waving one slim hand. "Excuse, Hank, I'm as educated as the next woman but I think you should dial down the rhetoric a notch."

Hank's hirsute blue visage took on a look of delicate hurt. "Apologies. I thought I expressed myself most concisely."

Forge issued a rusty-sounding laugh. "Your concise is another man's long-winded speech. Cut to the chase, Big Blue, or we'll be standing here all night."

Now there were smiles all around, even down to the gritted-teeth grimace on Storm's face.

"We've decided to implement a simulation programmed by Lorna and conceived of by our good Wolverine, here," Beast continued.

"Wait just a minute," Storm interjected a protest. "Logan has been training Scott this whole time. That's not exactly fair, is it? Of course he's going to want Scott to win--"

Logan's feet scuffed as he made as though to move forward, but stayed in his place. "Now you wait, darlin', if you're accusing me of rigging--"

"No one is accusing anyone," Hank interrupted, speaking up loud enough to override any other voices, and there was a hint of growl when he spoke. "There's been quite enough of that lately and I don't want to see it go any further. This is going to be a clean fight, that's why we've come together to act as judges. Ororo, please accord us due respect. We've given the proposed simulation the due consideration you should come to expect of a ruling, should it become necessary."

Storm folded her arms across her chest but said no more.

Hank's yellow eyes flicked in her direction once more, then he continued with a lift of his chin, keeping his voice light and pleasant. "It's a combat simulation, of course - the exact nature of which you will encounter once you go through that door. And because this is a duel, the parameters are thus: once the two of you enter the Danger Room, you are to treat one another as enemy combatants. You are tasked with subduing your opponent until they yield or are rendered unconscious."

Scott's eyes widened beneath his visor and he knew his brows were probably climbing upward. Those were harsh conditions. Both he and Storm were stubborn unto death, and would probably - no, definitely - incur injuries.

"Furthermore," Beast continued, a hint of amusement warming his severe delivery, "you are tasked with bringing your opponent back with no major injuries, as doing so would constitute a major public relations disaster that would damage the reputation of the X-Men. Understood?"

Scott gave a nod and sensed Storm doing the same beside him.

"Which means," Lorna spoke up, and she was clearly not amused, "no broken arms, no concussions, no internal injuries that could result in punctured organs...the list could go on. Use of deadly force is not authorized."

Hank nodded to second her statement. "Any life-threatening injury received by either of you will constitute immediate concession by the offending party."

Scott's lips stretched in a brief, humorless smile. "Still trying to make sure we don't get hurt, huh, Hank?" It was obvious to him that Hank, at least, had never forgotten the occasion when Scott had continued a Danger Room simulation with broken ribs.

"We've done a good job getting you back into fighting trim, I think," Hank said gently. "I don't believe we should be fighting one another at all, so naturally I seek to keep everyone's physical injuries to a minimum."

"Understood. Is that everything?" Ororo spoke up, inflectionless.

Hank turned his attention to her. "No, one more thing," he said, bland. "Seeing as you are the challenger, my dear Ororo, we are giving Scott a minute of lead-time. He enters the room first."

Scott tensed, waiting for an outburst. It didn't come.

"That's fine," Storm said. "Let's get this moving, shall we?" She rolled her shoulders and stalked over to the airlock door, avoiding everyone's eye.

Scott watched her for a moment, unable to keep himself from sizing her up, thinking that the tension and visible frustration in her posture could work for him - or against him, if she channeled it all into a rush of boiling fury. The Danger Room was large enough for her to manipulate wind, atmospheric condensation, possibly even generate lightning bolts and most certainly fog. She was also, like he and most of the X-Men, a trained martial artist in more than one discipline.

"That's it then," Hank said, looking at Scott and clapping his hands together briskly. "Good luck to both of you."

"Good luck," Lorna echoed as she followed Hank from the locker room, but her eyes were on Scott. She didn't quite smile.

"May the best suited to the position win the match," Forge said, keeping his gaze averted from both of them.

Logan was last to go, looming fierce as he brushed past Scott. He didn't say anything at all, but in his wake three words pounded hard in Scott's brain, eclipsing every other thought. You win this, they said in Logan's voice, a staccato injunction that seemed to rise up from the depths of him. You win this.

Scott nodded and moved toward the door.

They didn't say anything as they waited by the inner airlock. Storm stood on her side, gloved hands gripping her arms, intractable gaze turned on the door. Scott met her silence with his own, drawing a kind of trance around himself, preparing himself for everything and nothing by entering a state of readiness.

"Cyclops!" Young Theresa Rourke's name penetrated the wall on a wave of sonic hyper-frequency. "Begin!"

Ignoring the urge to clutch his head, Scott hit the panel that began the cycling of the immense inner door. Until now he had done a good job of distracting himself from potential variables, disengaging in favor of centering himself in the moment, but now he spared a quick thought for analysis. They were letting him go first in an apparent gesture for the fact that he was challenged, rather than the challenger, but as he moved forward and Storm remained behind it put him more in the position he'd been that day with Logan and the maze, with roles reversed. Hunting Logan's ostensible hunted, until the tables had been turned.

As that flashed through his mind and Scott stepped through the door into a broken cityscape, realization crackled through him more sharp and clear than any other message Logan could have given him. Become the hunter. He was going first, and for all that the reasoning for that had come from Hank, Scott felt utterly certain Logan had planted it there. Logan intended for him to win, and all but handed him the means to do it.

He had seen this simulation before, or one like it. The X-Men had used it dozens of times over. As Scott skirted the broken, smoldering heap of a car he noted the detritus and building layout was not the same as the sims they had run before. Of course, Logan would have altered it to make sure neither of them had any particular advantage and Lorna in her role as judge had probably compared it to the programming for all previous set-ups.

Scott moved forward, opening his visor here and there to blast things out of his way and create a trail, then he began to circle back, seeking a vantage point.

"Storm!" the sonic shout swept through him, jarring his teeth. "Begin!"

Scott picked his way through the rubble of a collapsed building and began to climb a stone stairway that had been broken clear through, sheared down almost to the wall in one place. He was going to climb to the second floor -- from there, he'd have a clear shot. He knew exactly how much he should open his visor to knock someone out without causing serious injury.

Before the inner door had even completed cycling, the atmosphere began to thicken. The pressure dropped and Scott yawned, popping his ears. Fog spread outward and swirled and he knew that she'd arrived.

He remained crouched against the crumbling windowsill for several thudding heartbeats, finger tensed beside his temple. The fog obscured everything and Scott had to admit to himself he'd lost her. Aside from one eddy of fog, which did not constitute a clear shot, he'd had no indication of Storm's presence.

Scott was loathe to abandon his secure position in the building -- Storm would have thought he'd struck further in by now, for sure. This building stood within clear view of the door. On the other hand Storm had a firm grasp of strategy, too, and she might have earmarked his building as a potential hiding place right off the bat.

He was still debating the merits of holding his position versus going out to play cat and mouse when a howling wind swept through the whole area.

That told him two things off the bat, as the building groaned under the wind's onslaught. She wanted to force him out into the open - and she didn't know where he was.

Scott hesitated a moment longer, crouched by the windowsill and sweeping the terrain for something he could use. By now upstairs in the observation booth they would have switched the screen to night- or infrared-vision to keep watching the match. The judges had to see what was going on, after all. For Scott's part, though, he couldn't see through the fog and there wasn't much point in waiting around here, hoping Storm would slip up and let herself be seen so that he could conveniently dispatch her.

Another gust of wind slammed against the building, rattling the whole structure. Scott braced himself against the windowsill, then made for the staircase. Aside from the wind scouring the darkened, foggy landscape, there was no sign of Storm's presence. She was smart enough not to taunt and clue him in to her location.

Prowling past heaps of scrap metal and the hollowed-out shapes of abandoned cars, Scott kept himself low to the ground to keep his center of gravity low. Wind slammed into him again and the fog swirled around him, parting enough for him to see dark shapes nearby - more empty cars, or the low line of a crumbling wall. He half-expected to hear the lumbering tread of a simulated Sentinel, red eyes glowing from a three-story height as it loomed from the fog.

The wind curled around him again. Storm was trying to knock him off-balance, surprising him into betraying his position with a noise or a grunt or even a stray blast. Fine, he'd give her noise. Scott hefted a piece of scrap metal and hurled it into the distance, putting his strength behind it. Then he crouched and waited.

It was only a few seconds before the clatter broke the silence, far enough from him to disguise the point of origin. The reaction was immediate and violent. Winds converged on the place of impact, howling fury that surged through the area and ripped the fog into shreds. As they did, Scott glimpsed a dark moving figure to his right, four o'clock. He went into overdrive, launching from his crouch into a run before his finger even depressed the button on his visor.

A wide blast cut through the whole area and the moving figure crumpled, tumbling to the ground in a graceless sprawl.

Lure your enemy in with the promise of weakness, then strike. Admonishments from Sun Tzu stood out prominent in his head as Scott approached, his finger poised but the closer he got, the more the effectiveness of his optic blast would be diminished in this instance and she would know that. His goal was to capture, not to injure. Once he was within a meter or so, he wouldn't be able to open his visor or he'd risk losing.

Close and closer, and he took his finger away from his temple. Storm lay motionless on the ground, her white-gray hair fanned out around her face and the high black collar of her uniform. She was sprawled out mostly on one side, her face hidden. The fog around them was melting.

The only thing he could do was approach and check her pulse.

Gritting his teeth, Scott approached her from the rear to give himself that extra split-second it would take her to swivel and face him if she were, in fact, conscious.

His precautions were borne out when a snap-kick sliced through the air and Scott leapt back. Storm heaved herself to her feet and moved forward lightning fast, hands jabbing forward and crackling with electric shock. Scott blocked with his forearms, blessing the long-ago decision to make the uniforms impervious to electricity as well as water. She was up and moving and pissed, her eyes seething with white haze that clouded over the darkness of irises, and the hair on the back of Scott's neck rose up. He blocked another volley of punches and closed in to grab her arms, watching sparks snap and die over his gloves, then heaved her away and threw himself to the side.

A kink of lightning zotted through the space he had been.

Open-mouthed, Scott wondered for a heartbeat if Storm remembered the terms of their match. He dialed his visor lower and opened fire, hitting the earth around Storm's feet and sending divots flying everywhere. One more and he'd blast her off her feet... then she swept her arm and the wind came with it, slamming into him and heaving him into a heap of masonry. When he hit the wall the breath went out of his lungs but Scott was fumbling for his visor again even as he fell. This was nothing, bruises, but she was skirting the edge - a little harder and she could've easily broken his ribs.

Scott parted his visor and sent forth a sheet of concussive force that he cut off a second later, watching it slam into cars and sending Storm tumbling to the ground again. As he pushed himself to his feet, though, the atmosphere was thickening again. Bolts of lightning snapped through the air and surrounded Storm like a mine-field, stressed ions scorching the field between her and Scott as she got up again, staggering and waving her arms to avoid going down on one knee.

Standoff, he identified it, and melted behind the wall, slipping deeper into the simulation of the ruined city. She would keep him at bay with her lightning and he'd keep his distance with the length of an optic blast between him and her.

As he moved past the buildings he began to set traps. The fog had closed in again and they were playing cat and mouse for a second time. Scott was determined not to get caught out. Here a tripwire, there a pitfall dug out with a second's worth of blast. He stretched out a length of ripped chain-link fence that was no longer attached to a wall to see if he could catch her out with sound, too. Then Scott began to circle back again, finding the first building and crouching in the lee of the wall. Now he would wait.

The fog rolled and sighed around the building but this time there was no wind. The silence made the place a ghost town and Scott looked around, catching a whisper of sound. He was caught by the urge to back up and take shelter deeper in the building. Trust your instincts, he could practically hear Logan's growl, and Scott swung his head up, startled and now certain he heard something besides the sibilance of fog. Look up, damn it!

He looked up, and his finger tensed. He blasted her out of the sky before he quite registered what he was seeing: Storm, gliding on the wind she'd been able to conjure and skimming along at second-story height, angling in with both feet aimed for his face.

She began to fall with an agonized cry and Scott swore under his breath; she could break her arm falling from that height and it would be a goddamned accident. The world slowed to a crawl and his legs churned as he put on speed, running flat-out. All those extra laps in the pool must have been good for something or some residual breeze kept her aloft long enough, because he made it.

Storm crashed into him and they both hit the dirt, breath laboring between their teeth. Startled dark eyes flashed in his direction and Storm was panting, rolling off him the next second and scrambling back on hands and knees.

"Forget it," Scott said, pushing himself up on his elbows then leaning back, flipping himself to his feet. He knew what he was supposed to do now. Assume another fighting posture, prepare himself for another round of battle. Hadn't it gone on long enough? They had enough to contend with, and the infighting made things that much worse. "Just...forget it, all right? You're safe and that's all that matters. You could've really hurt yourself, falling from that high."

Storm bared her teeth and shook her head then the expression caved into horror. Her eyes were wide and dark and fixed on him as she shook her head back and forth. Her mouth worked and she sat up, hugging her knees.

I don't want to fight anymore, he was about to say, which was the next step toward concession when Storm spoke up, low but firm.

"I yield," she said.

Scott shut his eyes, then opened them. She was still sprawled out on the ground there, her face turned up in his direction, head cocked to one side. Real, not a hallucination. "Storm, what--"

"Yield acknowledged from Ororo Munroe, codename Storm," the pleasant mechanical voice echoed through the Danger Room in all directions. "Winner determined. Scott Summers, codename Cyclops, is the victor." The dark, grimy cityscape dissolved all around them, leaving Storm sitting on a black grid bisected with silvery-white lines and Scott standing over her as though he'd defeated her in truth.

He held out his hand. "You okay?"

Ororo bestowed a tight smile on him but she put out her hand, curling her fingers into his and letting him haul her to her feet. "I've had worse," she said, reflective. "Could have broken something for sure, if you hadn't caught me. And then I would've won for sure, hmm?"

Scott rubbed at the back of his neck. "That's not why--"

"I know," she interrupted him. "You caught me because you weren't going to let me get hurt. You can't stand for any of us to get hurt if you can put yourself between us and harm's way. Somewhere along the way I guess I let myself lose sight of that." She squeezed his hand and let go, giving him another, less rigid smile.

The inner airlock door opened and people streamed through it, ebullient hulking blue Hank in his button-up shirt and white lab coat, Lorna in her scoop-necked t-shirt with masses of green hair flowing over her shoulders as she rushed forward with congratulations, Alex beside her with a hand clasped firmly in hers as he grinned all over his handsome face. They were all there, Peter shaking his hands above his head in a boxer's handshake, Bobby and Rogue arm in arm and both of them babbling something a mile a minute that sounded like congratulations or something conciliatory to Storm or both, Kitty pushing her way through people to come up to the front. In the back of the group stood Logan, arms crossed over his chest as he lounged by the door and there was a glint in his eye. He knew, that look said. It was good as though Scott had won by brute force.

In front of everyone Storm thrust her hand forward into range, holding it up until Scott took hold of her hand again. She went for the firm businesslike handshake this time. "You've won," Storm said, lifting her chin. "You're our field leader, Scott."

"No," Scott replied, and there was a gasp and someone else shushing -- Kitty and Peter, from the sound of it.

Storm put her head to one side, her brows slanting puzzlement and her fingers squeezing down on his. "No?"

He released her hand, bestowing a brief smile on her before surveying the rest of them: his X-Men. He looked at each face in turn before turning away and giving his attention to Ororo again. "You're right," he said. "You have been leading them for the past year. They trust me, but they trust you too -- both of us. I'm making my first decision as Xavier's successor. There's going to be two teams, from now on. We've got new X-Men, and new graduates. I want you to lead one of those teams."

Ororo blinked, her hand drifting down to her body to clasp the opposite arm. She processed what he'd said, cocking her head and staring at him, then broke into a grin that flashed white teeth in her lovely dark face. It was a smile Scott hadn't seen from her in over a year. "We'll have to fight again just to get our choices for the team rosters."

Yeah, Scott thought. He met Logan's eyes, which were already on him as he'd thought they would be. But Wolverine is mine.