Log [Alison, Haroun] A training we go...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Just one of those early morning training sessions. Nothing complicated or even involving powers, yet with explosive results nonetheless.

It had taken some time for her to set this up, and a fair amount of consultation with a fair amount of people considering she knew less than nothing about the current challenge facing Haroun. In fact, being no fool, she'd let the experts do all the work after outlining what she needed. Leaning on the side of the window in the observation tower, Alison looked down into the Danger Room and at the expression of intense concentration on Haroun's features as he faced off with the latest challenge that had been thought up for him.

Haroun swore under his breath in Arabic. He studied the small orange package stuck to the main support pillar of the parking garage. Hundreds of people all going about their jobs over his head. The bomber would detonate the bomb at the first sign of a mass exodus from the building.

Which means he had fifteen minutes to go before the lunch hour started.

Eyes flickering to the timer, Alison remained stock still, watching. This was a single man exercise, the simulation of environment simple to the extreme, the occasional sound and motion from the area surrounding him all designed to render the utmost believability to the scenario. Which meant not using the robots themselves, but instead relying on atmosphere as much as possible. If he didn't get it before the building clock starting to ring out noon... Alison winced a bit at that, though the touch had been too perfect to pass up.

Haroun slowly, steadily worked the bomb cover off. Now that he could get at the guts of the explosive device, he could see to starting to disarm it. Much of his clock was wasted making sure that the bomber hadn't booby-trapped the bomb casing itself. Now he was granted with a profusion of wires snaking hither and yon, and he swore in Arabic. He was going to have to start working more quickly.

As she watched him set the cover down, Alison leaned forward just a bit more and then pulled back, a nose print left in the glass, causing her to go cross-eyed as she focused on it briefly. Shaking her head she admonished herself to pay attention once more, the console bleeping at her now and then depending on what Haroun did. And the time that passed, ticking away slowly second by second. He was, she thought, handling this so much better than she might have, by any stretch of the imagination.

Haroun, tracing the wires, had it narrowed down to four possibilities. Unfortunately, that narrowing-down process had reduced his available time down to a measly two minutes. He was also fairly sure that one wrong wire cut would detonate the entire package. Four wires. Four colors. Haroun wiped his brow, which had become heavy with sweat, and took a deep breath.

There was a hint of pride in her eyes as she gazed down. He was dead calm under pressure and she knew only too well he didn't ever let Danger Room scenarios be anything but real to him, while undergoing them. Wiping the small smile from her face, Alison settled back into serious and attentive mode, head tilted to the side as the clock on the console started to tick out time in a more regular way.

Haroun took thirty seconds to explore his options more thoroughly. He eliminated the yellow and green wires, and was left only with the red and the blue. Swallowing heavily, he made his decision and adjusted his wire cutters into position.

Snip.

Wincing, Alison slowly brought one hand to the side of her face, backing away a touch from the windows as Haroun, utterly unmoving, positively radiated exactly how he was feeling clear across the room to the control booth. Without ever looking away from the control panel once. Well. Sort of. It wasn't as though he could look at anything at that particular moment.

Haroun wiped the goo from his eyes, and made an attempt to wipe it from his front. He merely succeeded in smearing it over his chest. He didn't say a word, but his jaw was clenched and his eyes were bright with the promise of mayhem. "So that's it?" he said after a moment. "Scenario over, I lose?"

"Scenario over," she agreed calmly, heading for the door and the stairs down to the corridor to join him in the Danger Room. She continued over the comm while trotting over. "There was no reason to think we'd come across a situation like that, but also no reason to think, well... not." And it had been something different than what Haroun usually did for training. Which had been the actual point.

Striding inside the Danger Room, Alison made her way to him, expression entirely controlled. And didn't reply that everyone else had lost as well, as evinced by the deep silence now surrounding them – Haroun knew this only too well, after all.

"One fucking wire," he said around gritted teeth, softly so that Alison couldn't hear him easily. "One wire." His hands clenched into fists, and he only relaxed them in order to keep the foul goop from dripping into his eyes, his nose, his mouth.

The mutters were there, if somewhat interfered with by the goop. Which was, Alison had to say, not as bad as say - an actual bomb exploding. Though it had striking undertones of the other time she'd seen Haroun in similar circumstances, the result of a still unknown party's prank. "Do you want me to tell you which wire it was, or to redo the scenario later with variations to it?" She was just close enough to get herself in trouble, if that was what it took to balance things out. It was only fair after all.

"No, I don't want you to tell me which damned wire it was." He growled, and then whirled and punched the pillar above the bomb, full-force. "One. Goddamned. Wire." he repeated. Punching the wall felt good, even as his hand screamed. Letting the frustration out felt good. He was going to spend the next few days obsessing over this. He knew it. At least the library was well-stocked, and Shan could get her hands on more resource materials on demolitions if he asked her.

He'd hit it dead on right and there would be, perhaps, just a bit of balm needed for that hand in the evening, Alison noted, her own hands flexing unconsciously in reflex. She never hit things if she could avoid it for a reason. A musician's hands were always to be taken care of. Always. She repressed the urge to check on his hand, though it led to her nearly dancing in place for a heartbeat. "One wire." The acknowledgement was mildly spoken, Alison tilting her head to the side.

Haroun glared at Alison. "Don't look at me like that." He snapped, and then stared back at the bomb casing again like it held all the answers.

"Okay. I'm going to leave you here to commune with the bomb until you want to review that session." She nodded in a matter of fact way and turned around, continuing idly. "Saves me getting slimed by you, too, if I split now." And then paused in mid step, looking over her shoulder slowly, shifting her weight in preparation for a dead run. Either he'd snip at her and stalk off, or he'd darn well tackled her and make sure she was slimed from top to bottom. She was laying even odds on either.

"Oh, shut up. When was the last time you blew a run like this?" he growled at her, and then immediately regretted it. Way to mouth off to your CO, moron. "I should have guessed that the slime was your idea." he said, getting a good double-handful of the vile stuff. He then pounced on her and rubbed that double-handful all through her hair. "See how you like it!"

"Gleep!" The protest was entirely inarticulate and filled with a touch of dismay - underlined entirely by glee at the situation. Pouncing was good. Getting slimed was well worth returning Haroun's mood back to something more positive too. And she'd kill her partners in crime if they'd made the slime anything but safe for a person's hair. Kill them dead. Still half protesting and laughing, Alison tried to squirm away from Haroun with no success at all, finally retaliating as best she could instead by smearing slime right back over him. Well, more anyway. She could show him exactly how many scenarios she'd wiped out on later on, she decided. It wasn't as though she had her own far more impressive mishaps to share.

Haroun tried to get as much of the slime on Alison as he could – by the simple convenience of rubbing as much of himself on and around her as he possibly could. Serve her right. But his foul mood at failure and worse, the indignities of being coated in this loathsome slime was made less by sharing it with Alison.

Still laughing and now just as covered in slime as Haroun was, as well as trying to hold onto him somehow which was being turned into a definite challenge by the slime, Alison finally called for mercy. "You win! Am, ugh, that tastes awful, slimed!" Still laughing, she smeared his cheek cheerfully, grinning up at him with her hair held up askew in ways defying gravity.

Haroun grinned, kipped up to his feet - gyrostabilization was occasionally a very useful thing - and picked Alison up to throw her over his shoulder. "Ook." he said, and proceeded to carry her off to the locker room entrance.

"Gleep!" Again, because he was slippery and she was slippery and it was a good thing he'd somehow managed a solid grip anyway. This time the doorway did not try to knock her out, though she reached out to tap the locking command in the door panel as he tromped by it. And then laughed helplessly, managing an "ook!" of her own in there somewhere.

Maybe getting cleaned up and spending a little downtime with Alison would take this latest failure off his mind. At least it was a simulation, where the only thing injured was his pride. Shivering at the thought, he carried Alison down into the locker rooms.