xp_logs | Nathan, Angelo, and Clarice, in the Danger Room

Nathan runs a Danger Room scenario with the two trainees. There's as much talking it through and analysis (and judicious use of the Danger Room's 'pause button') as there is fighting drones. Unfortunately, there's also some yelling.

Nathan pulled on his gloves, flexing his hands, and glanced at the two trainees standing with him in the Danger Room. "Hostage situation," he said, knowing that they hadn't been allowed to review the specs on the scenario. "Fifteen schoolkids on the second floor of the building that's going to appear when the Room comes on. They've been herded together into the library." It was a near-perfect replica of the mission in Rio against the Sangue Puro group the previous summer - with considerably fewer resources at hand for the good guys, of course. Scott's scenario programming had focused on how to do more with less fairly heavily, these last few weeks. "I would be your field leader and your telepath. This is not an ideal situation. Either of you want to venture a guess as to why?"

"Somethin' happens to you, we lose the field leader an' the switchboard both", Angelo said promptly. "An' you might get distracted runnin' the switchboard."

"Plus, we gotta get the kids out and keep them safe at both ends. If I'm teleporting them, that means you gotta pull triple duty and no one to cover either of your backs," Clarice pointed out as well.

"This is why we're going to forego the switchboard," Nathan said. He sensed Scott directing a questioning thought in his direction. #Not yet.# One of the luxuries of training was to be able to stop and assess, before, during, and after if need be. "We do have regular coms, after all," he said. "They're not quite as useful in a complex tactical situation as the switchboard, but they work just as well."

He turned his attention to Clarice next, raising an eyebrow. "And what makes you think I'm sending you in there to teleport the kids?"

Clarice shrugged, "That's what we always do. Send the teleporter in to get the hostages and injured out quick." Of course, it was a training mission, which means any number of crazy schemes were in the works. Scott was devious like that.

"But maybe that's what they'd be expectin'", Angelo said slowly, watching Nathan. "What've you got in mind?"

"More with less," Nathan said. "There are five hostage-takers, fifteen hostages. Three of us. What's going to be most efficient?" He directed to the question to both of them. "Remove a few of the hostages, leave some of the hostage-takers free to shoot at them - or hit the hostage-takers first?"

"Hit the hostage-takers", Angelo said, starting to smile. He hadn't forgotten what Nathan had once told him about a possible use of his powers, in a situation that had sounded a lot like this one.

"Assuming they don't have backup closeby," Clarice added, "Because even if we take out the hostage-takers without harming any hostages, we still have to keep the hostages safe to the pickup point."

"Five hostage-takers," Nathan emphasized, "all inside the building. We know that because the field leader had his telepath scan the area." He smiled slightly. "It was one of those handy internal conversations."

He glanced up at the control booth, then back at his team for the purposes of this run. "Two staircases," he said. "We go up on the west side. One entrance to the library - we're going in the front." It was not the plan they'd used in Rio, and not a plan he'd have used had this been for real. What he wanted to see was how these two dealt with chaos; they could dissect his intentional strategic mistakes at leisure after the scenario. "Once we're up there, I'll 'spot' the positions of the hostage-takers inside the room."

"Only five?" Angelo asked sceptically. "For fifteen hostages? Isn't that kind of risky, in a buildin' this size?"

"Terrorists are not always the smartest cookies in the bag."

Clarice thought for a moment, before responding, "Yeah, but they're getting smarter, overall. Do they have bombs? Or wired the hostages?"

Nathan gave her a level, amused look. "Something you're going to have to get used to, Clarice, is that we don't have all the intel we need most of the time." He looked back up at the control booth, nodding. The Danger Room shimmered around them as the scenario booted up. "So the answer to your question is 'we'll find out'."

Angelo chuckled to himself, straightening up and getting ready to start. "Guess we will."

The room shimmered slightly and changed so that they were standing a little ways from a large grey building. Police tape and random people milled around, oblivious to the other three. "West is that way," she said, pointing to the far side of the building. Internal compasses were good things.

Angelo glanced between the other two, then started cautiously heading towards the side Clarice had indicated.

Nathan made an unamused sound low in his throat. "Computer, pause scenario." Everything froze, and he tilted his head at Angelo. "Sancho," he said, smiling a very tiny little smile, "what happens if they fire from the windows? Do you want to be in the lead, or do you want the person who can catch bullets to be in the lead?"

Angelo eyed him right back, unabashed. "You're the field leader, Cable. If you get hit by one bullet that gets past you in the wrong place, or if any of them've got powers you can't catch, we're screwed."

"Someone's been eating his Wheaties this morning." There was amusement in Nathan's eyes now, a lively sort of amusement that had a definite edge to it. "And here we see again why being short-handed is bad. So may I suggest a compromise? Sancho here takes the lead, but I stay ready to catch bullets, so that I don't have to tell his mother that I let her son get shot because I was using him as a human shield?"

"Negative, Ghostrider," Clarice vetoed, "I can catch bullets. Or at least, send them off to Siberia. That way, you can focus on other things. Like leading."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "That you can, but your reaction time is not as good as mine. Computer, resume scenario," he said, and everything started to move again. He jerked his head towards the building. #Quickly and quietly. Stop at the door,# he projected.

His part of the argument seemingly won, Angelo obeyed without hesitation and in full - he might not be afraid to argue with Nathan anymore, but that didn't mean he'd not follow orders when there was no good reason not to.

No one fired at them from the windows, of course; it had been an intellectual exercise, something that might have been a consideration. When they reached the door, Nathan gave quick, quiet orders before leading them in and up the stairs - not taking any debate about who should go first this time.

He stopped them again, just around the corner from the hall where the library was. #Two on the door,# he said, speaking from his knowledge of the scenario rather than his telepathy, as of course he wasn't detecting psi-signatures from drones. #Just inside the library. Two holding guns on the kids. One talking to the hostage negotiators, on the phone behind the librarian's desk. How do we proceed?#

Clarice paused to consider, #Can you give me an image? I could 'port the two on the kids, trade them for me and Angelo and then take the two on the door and the guy on the phone simultaneously.# Even she didn't think that it was the best plan, but she didn't to compromise Nathan if she could help it.

#Way overreaching there, Tink,# Nathan said. #That gives the two on the door and the guy on the phone time to shoot up the place. Sancho?#

Angelo considered. #Only two of them've got their guns out right now... Tink takes those like she said, I deal with the guys by the door, Cable gets the last one, from a distance. Or Cable could just deactivate their guns right now.#

Nathan waggled an eyebrow at the last option. #Think of it like this, Tink - stagger the jump, draw their attention, and then get them out of there. Sancho takes the two on the door, I shield the kids and throw the one on the phone against the wall.#

That was much simpler. She really didn't explain things well in these situations, but generally she could do something useful at the spur of the moment. Just don't ask her to explain it. Nodding, she replied: "Count of three?"

"Count of three", Angelo agreed, poised and ready to move.

"One. Two..." There was a noise from down the hall, before Nathan could get to three, and he smiled as a sixth 'man' leaned out from a doorway and opened fire. He threw up a shield, blanks or no blanks -and waited to see how the two trainees reacted.

Clarice flattened herself to the ground, a blink disk above her to catch any wayward bullets, unfortunantly, they were not transparent so she couldn't block her face as she'd like to. As the gunman realized where she'd gone she heard a bullet fall into her disk and smiled. The other end was right behind him.

"Freeze scenario!" The battlefield-level roar came from Nathan as the 'gunman' fell face-down, taken by a bullet from the disk behind him. He reached down and hauled Clarice up to her feet with one hand, visibly seething. "What the hell was that?"

"What?" Clarice almost whimpered, she was pissed and confused. And scared. Nathan angry was scary. Very very scary. She thought about what had happened, she'd been careful. And she'd stopped the bullets and him. What was wrong?

"What is that, Ferguson?" he snarled at her, pointing at the felled droid, still wearing its holographic disguise. "That looks like a dead terrorist to me. Tell me, why am I looking at a dead terrorist?"

"He was shooting at us!" she defended herself, she hadn't meant to kill him. Just disable him. Crap. "And now he won't get back up and start trying to kill us again! And it was a droid! It's not like it was a real person!" In the heat of the moment she had just reacted with the goal of stopping the problem, she hadn't worried about the most ethical solution.

"We're s'posed to treat Danger Room sessions like they are all real people, though", Angelo spoke up quietly. "'Cause next time or the time after, it's gonna be."

"It was the easy way," Nathan said, still seething, although less noticeably now as he let go of her. "You took the easy way out, the simplest solution. Kill the terrorist. And yes, he's a piece of shit holding children hostage, but we do not kill."

Sighing, she nodded. "I know. I meant to hit him in the knees, not that's an excuse, but I really had not intended to kill him."

Nathan took a deep breath and let it back out, the anger going with it. "All right. Let's look at how this could have gone different. Computer, replay the scenario in reverse." The Danger Room obeyed, substituting holographic X-Men for Nathan's team of three, and Nathan was silent, allowing Angelo and Clarice to take in what they were seeing. "This is where the switchboard would have come in handy," he said finally. "You two would have known I was throwing up a shield as soon as I did. I'll admit the three of us haven't trained enough together for you to be able to safely assume that I would."

"The three of us haven't, maybe", Angelo said with a crooked grin. "But I should've figured you would, we've worked together long enough."

For various reasons, Clarice hadn't really trained with Nathan, which was why she was doing it now. And without the switchboard, she hadn't even thought to consult the others. "I'm sorry," she said softly, not quite mumbling. Her powers were either severely defensive or offensive, she hadn't been able to find a way to make them not be on either extreme and she wasn't sure it could even be done. Which was another reason she needed to learn more tactics and hand to hand.

"Hey," Nathan said, waiting until she looked at him. "This is training, remember? You mess up, you get yelled at, you get some food for thought for the next time." He smiled at her, and there wasn't any tightness about the expression. The flash of temper was gone as quickly as it had come.

Angelo stepped forward to squeeze her shoulder quickly. "We all screw up. An' better in here than out there, it's what it's for."

They had a point, but her arm still hurt from when Nathan had hauled her up like she weighed nothing. She just looked at them, trying not to glare or get pissy. She did not do well with failure.

"All right," Nathan said, not missing the very set look on her face. "We're going to head back down and start the scenario again from our infiltration point. I'm going to have the computer randomize some of the elements, just to warn you..." He gave the two trainees a look that was half-stern, half-amused. "And don't get too accustomed to having a do-over. That's a privilege only the Danger Room affords."