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xp_logsNathan's running a solo scenario in the Danger Room - an evacuation-run - when he gets a surprise. Then, when he finishes the scenario successfully, he gets another. Only maybe it's not really a surprise after all.
During the extensive conversations with Charles, Jack, and Askani on how to solve the problem of his overly draw nerves, one of the more productive solutions had been a new focus on breathing exercises. They did help, far more than he'd expected when Charles had suggested them. It had seemed like such a simple answer to such a complicated problem, but they had turned out to be a firm foundation, if nothing else. Lately, Nathan had found himself doing them pretty much every time he was working in the Danger Room, no matter what the scenario at hand involved. This one, non-combat or not, was threatening to produce the same sort of adrenalin surges that had been wreaking such havoc with his training performance when he'd started back. So the measured breathing was coming in very handy.
Currently, he was leading a small group of drones holo-disguised as terrified civilians through a burning forest. Every so often, the ground beneath them shook violently, almost rolling, as the Danger Room's modular systems did their impressive best to imitate an earthquake. The 'cause' was an unspecified mutant wreaking havoc somewhere behind them in the forest. It was an understood part of the scenario that the rest of the team was trying to subdue the walking natural disaster, but Nathan's job was to get the civilians out of here. To protect them, and he gritted his teeth, surrounding them in a TK bubble as the ground crumbled beneath them, the Danger Room retracting the floor to provide the right effect beneath the hologram. He levitated them to the edge of the pit and let go.
"Keep close!" They were programmed to follow his verbal instructions, most of the time. A few would deviate from time to time, in preprogrammed panic. It was only realistic. Highly irritating, but realistic.
Burning trees toppled towards them, and Nathan flung them away with a push channeled through his psimitar. They were really just more modules, toppling pillars beneath the holograms, but they were the right size and weight, even if there was no sense of heat. The ground rumbled and shook beneath his feet again again, the tremors increased. Amazing how realistic that did feel, Nathan thought... and in that moment of half-distraction, one of the drones, a small one with the holo-facade of a child, broke and ran. Shit! Nathan gritted his teeth, reaching out to drag it back...
...only to brush against terrified, distinctively youthful and feminine thoughts. He froze, eyes going wide. What the fuck... The moment of inattention cost him as the ground rumbled again, another pit opening up and swallowing two of the other drones.
And he sensed them panicking, screaming silently even as their holographic selves screamed aloud. For an instant, Nathan's focus was totally fractured, his mind racing through the possibilities. Charles. It had to be Charles generating telepathic ghosts, making him think that...
But he was moving before the realization had fully formed. Running for the small drone... the child, and catching the other two telekinetically even as he caught up to it, no, to her, and carried her back to the ground. It was all instinct, reflex, and not the kind of reflex he needed to train out, either.
Sneaky. Very sneaky. Suddenly there was an edge to all of this there hadn't been before, an additional level of distraction. And although he knew damned well that the minds he were sensing weren't real, just extremely... convincing echoes that Charles had to be producing, he could hear them. Hear their fear, and that lent the situation an urgency that hadn't been there before. Triggered an automatic emotional reaction, and a productive one, instead of one that hindered.
Almost as soon as he'd worked that through, there was no more time for analysis. He could sense the fight, the out-of-control mutant and the other members of the team, drifting closer. The effects on the environment were instant and noticeable, and he knew he had to get the civilians moving faster. "Ahead of me where I can see you!" he called, letting them pass him. Easier to react if they were in front of him, easier to shield all of them. And rearguard was a better position, tactically speaking, when you were doing something like this. "Keep moving towards the plane!"
Protect. It felt natural, as if something had woken back up inside him - finally. This was what his abilities let him do, as effectively as they let him fight. More so. This was what his nature suited him to do, and that wasn't all Mistra's doing with the pack conditioning. Not even mostly Mistra.
A smile blazed across his face suddenly, even in the midst of the chaos, and he herded the drones doggedly, if gently, towards the plane. Trees kept toppling towards them, but Nathan brushed them away. Some of his charges fell as the ground rocked violently, but he picked them back up telekinetically, urging them onwards. The psimitar glowed in his hands, almost humming, and he split his focus effortlessly, addressing each of the obstacles the environment threw in their path with ease.
And then they were there. All of them. Safely.
---
Okay, so he'd wound up considerably out of breath. There were times coming out of the Danger Room when he knew all too well that he was thirty-nine, Nathan thought with a flash of amusement, stepping out into the hall. The Danger Room doors slid shut behind him. A flicker of familiar, composed thoughts grabbed his attention, and he raised an eyebrow at the sight of Ororo coming down the hall towards him.
"Hey," he greeted her, turning towards the locker room. He hadn't sensed her in the control booth. "Are you next on the schedule? I didn't think to look..." He suspected he had run a little overtime.
"Mmm? Oh no, not at all." Smiling that secret smile of hers, Ororo came to a stop before him, looking entirely too pleased about, well, something. "That was a very interesting session to watch. I hope you didn't mind my asking Charles to boost things a litle for you? He seemed intrigued by the notion when I spoke to him about it." Her voice floated calmly in the hallway, each word clearly enunciated, her accent coloring each and every one.
Nathan blinked, then smiled back. So she had been in the control booth. Interesting. "It added a little something," he said lightly. "Verisimilitude if nothing else. That is to say, no, I didn't mind."
"Good." Smiling at him, she nodded gravefully to punctuate the statement, and then started to turn around to leave. Then paused, looking over her shoulder at him. Still with that same smile. "Well then. Once you're cleared by the medlab for your physical, I expect we'll be seeing you at the next team briefing." It was, pointedly, not a question.
Ah-hah. "I'll be there with bells on," Nathan said after a moment, the smile lingering. "Figuratively speaking, of course. Otherwise that would be rather disturbing."
A low laugh greeted the comment. "Well, mostly for the rest of us making certain to keep a clear path between you and the door for when Moira decides to set things to rights, yes." The smile firmed for a moment. "It's good to see you like this, Nathan."
"It's good to be back," Nathan murmured, smiling at her retreating back for a moment longer before he headed to the locker room for a well-deserved shower.
During the extensive conversations with Charles, Jack, and Askani on how to solve the problem of his overly draw nerves, one of the more productive solutions had been a new focus on breathing exercises. They did help, far more than he'd expected when Charles had suggested them. It had seemed like such a simple answer to such a complicated problem, but they had turned out to be a firm foundation, if nothing else. Lately, Nathan had found himself doing them pretty much every time he was working in the Danger Room, no matter what the scenario at hand involved. This one, non-combat or not, was threatening to produce the same sort of adrenalin surges that had been wreaking such havoc with his training performance when he'd started back. So the measured breathing was coming in very handy.
Currently, he was leading a small group of drones holo-disguised as terrified civilians through a burning forest. Every so often, the ground beneath them shook violently, almost rolling, as the Danger Room's modular systems did their impressive best to imitate an earthquake. The 'cause' was an unspecified mutant wreaking havoc somewhere behind them in the forest. It was an understood part of the scenario that the rest of the team was trying to subdue the walking natural disaster, but Nathan's job was to get the civilians out of here. To protect them, and he gritted his teeth, surrounding them in a TK bubble as the ground crumbled beneath them, the Danger Room retracting the floor to provide the right effect beneath the hologram. He levitated them to the edge of the pit and let go.
"Keep close!" They were programmed to follow his verbal instructions, most of the time. A few would deviate from time to time, in preprogrammed panic. It was only realistic. Highly irritating, but realistic.
Burning trees toppled towards them, and Nathan flung them away with a push channeled through his psimitar. They were really just more modules, toppling pillars beneath the holograms, but they were the right size and weight, even if there was no sense of heat. The ground rumbled and shook beneath his feet again again, the tremors increased. Amazing how realistic that did feel, Nathan thought... and in that moment of half-distraction, one of the drones, a small one with the holo-facade of a child, broke and ran. Shit! Nathan gritted his teeth, reaching out to drag it back...
...only to brush against terrified, distinctively youthful and feminine thoughts. He froze, eyes going wide. What the fuck... The moment of inattention cost him as the ground rumbled again, another pit opening up and swallowing two of the other drones.
And he sensed them panicking, screaming silently even as their holographic selves screamed aloud. For an instant, Nathan's focus was totally fractured, his mind racing through the possibilities. Charles. It had to be Charles generating telepathic ghosts, making him think that...
But he was moving before the realization had fully formed. Running for the small drone... the child, and catching the other two telekinetically even as he caught up to it, no, to her, and carried her back to the ground. It was all instinct, reflex, and not the kind of reflex he needed to train out, either.
Sneaky. Very sneaky. Suddenly there was an edge to all of this there hadn't been before, an additional level of distraction. And although he knew damned well that the minds he were sensing weren't real, just extremely... convincing echoes that Charles had to be producing, he could hear them. Hear their fear, and that lent the situation an urgency that hadn't been there before. Triggered an automatic emotional reaction, and a productive one, instead of one that hindered.
Almost as soon as he'd worked that through, there was no more time for analysis. He could sense the fight, the out-of-control mutant and the other members of the team, drifting closer. The effects on the environment were instant and noticeable, and he knew he had to get the civilians moving faster. "Ahead of me where I can see you!" he called, letting them pass him. Easier to react if they were in front of him, easier to shield all of them. And rearguard was a better position, tactically speaking, when you were doing something like this. "Keep moving towards the plane!"
Protect. It felt natural, as if something had woken back up inside him - finally. This was what his abilities let him do, as effectively as they let him fight. More so. This was what his nature suited him to do, and that wasn't all Mistra's doing with the pack conditioning. Not even mostly Mistra.
A smile blazed across his face suddenly, even in the midst of the chaos, and he herded the drones doggedly, if gently, towards the plane. Trees kept toppling towards them, but Nathan brushed them away. Some of his charges fell as the ground rocked violently, but he picked them back up telekinetically, urging them onwards. The psimitar glowed in his hands, almost humming, and he split his focus effortlessly, addressing each of the obstacles the environment threw in their path with ease.
And then they were there. All of them. Safely.
---
Okay, so he'd wound up considerably out of breath. There were times coming out of the Danger Room when he knew all too well that he was thirty-nine, Nathan thought with a flash of amusement, stepping out into the hall. The Danger Room doors slid shut behind him. A flicker of familiar, composed thoughts grabbed his attention, and he raised an eyebrow at the sight of Ororo coming down the hall towards him.
"Hey," he greeted her, turning towards the locker room. He hadn't sensed her in the control booth. "Are you next on the schedule? I didn't think to look..." He suspected he had run a little overtime.
"Mmm? Oh no, not at all." Smiling that secret smile of hers, Ororo came to a stop before him, looking entirely too pleased about, well, something. "That was a very interesting session to watch. I hope you didn't mind my asking Charles to boost things a litle for you? He seemed intrigued by the notion when I spoke to him about it." Her voice floated calmly in the hallway, each word clearly enunciated, her accent coloring each and every one.
Nathan blinked, then smiled back. So she had been in the control booth. Interesting. "It added a little something," he said lightly. "Verisimilitude if nothing else. That is to say, no, I didn't mind."
"Good." Smiling at him, she nodded gravefully to punctuate the statement, and then started to turn around to leave. Then paused, looking over her shoulder at him. Still with that same smile. "Well then. Once you're cleared by the medlab for your physical, I expect we'll be seeing you at the next team briefing." It was, pointedly, not a question.
Ah-hah. "I'll be there with bells on," Nathan said after a moment, the smile lingering. "Figuratively speaking, of course. Otherwise that would be rather disturbing."
A low laugh greeted the comment. "Well, mostly for the rest of us making certain to keep a clear path between you and the door for when Moira decides to set things to rights, yes." The smile firmed for a moment. "It's good to see you like this, Nathan."
"It's good to be back," Nathan murmured, smiling at her retreating back for a moment longer before he headed to the locker room for a well-deserved shower.
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