Scott and Lil

[x-diamondlil.livejournal.com]

Scott runs Lil through a Danger Room sequence.


It was maybe a little early to be wearing his leathers, Scott thought, wincing slightly as he flexed his arm. The body armor was tight enough that it was putting a little too much pressure on the still-healing gashes. The Danger Room was coming to life around them, creating the simulation he'd cooked up for Lil, although the more 'active' elements would wait for his command to start. Wouldn't do to be getting shot at while they were still talking over what they were here to do.

"Pretty standard hostage-type situation," Scott said, inclining his head at the holographic daycare across the street. "Mutant supremacist group, looking to snatch the child of an anti-mutant politician. Only they've gotten caught in there by the police, who find themselves with something of a conundrum." Better training and equipment for law enforcement was one of the new administration's goals, post-Manhattan, but it would take awhile for anything they did to be reflected on the local level - and even when it was, who knew how effective it would actually be? "So we need to get in there."

Kids. It had to be fucking kids. And ones the size of Val - real ankle biters, not like the teens hoping around the mansion. Lil sighed then nodded her head once at Scott though her eyes flickered back and forth between him and the building. "And by get in there we're talking by physical means, yeah?" Because there was just no way he could expect her to handle actual hostage negotiations. "Sneak in the back, break down the wall kinda stuff while they are distracted by the cops." "There'd probably be more of us if this was actually happening," Scott conceded. "And the situation would have to be pretty damned dire to take the direct approach." For a moment he remembered Rio, years ago, and Sangue Puro in that school. "It's just you and me for the purposes of the simulation, though."

"Yeah, I get that," Lil said blowing a lock of hair out of her face. "It's a simulation. But it's me and you going in there, not us trying to talk them into come out here, right? Or we're taking them as the come out 'cause the cops can't?" She wasn't entirely clear on the whole scenario beyond 'don't let the kids get dead.'

Scott nodded briefly. "I programmed multiple energy projectors," he said. "So it's one of those situations where you really do need mutants to take down mutants, especially since there's no easy way to get CS gas or the like inside the room where they've got the kids. No handy exterior windows. Under normal circumstances they'd try, or we'd go in with the cover provided by a SWAT team - flashbangs, smoke grenades, that sort of thing. But this is more about what we do when we're in there than the set-up. Plenty of other scenarios in the database to cover the latter."

Eyes glued to the daycare building, Lil gave another slow bob of her head. What a sucky set up. Instead of getting the 'good job with the mobsters the other day' praise she was expecting, she had to save holographic hostages. Holographic children hostages at that. She nodded again with a bit more confidence than she felt - why couldn't he have suggested tossing a few more goons around in a scenario that didn't have such consequences if she fucked up? - and turned her gaze back on Scott. "Ready when you are."

"I'll start the ball rolling once we're at the door," Scott said, heading across the street and letting her follow. He wasn't above priming the pump a little, given the nature of the scenario, and proved it with his next words. "We went into a school once in Rio de Janeiro - it had been taken over by an anti-mutant group for the sin of running an integrated curriculum. They were going to kill all the mutant kids inside."

The blonde woman's frown deepened. "Kids shouldn't be part of this shit. They should be off limits to all the sick fucks in the world," Lil hissed. "Mutant or not, kids need to be left the fuck alone." It was one of her major drives as to why she wanted Alpha: make the world a better place for the next generation.

"Oh, but they never are," Scott said quite patiently - and quite deliberately, as they reached the fire exit. Inside, they found a long hallway, and he led her to the door that led into the rooms where the children were being held. The actual daycare was at the front of the building, and would have been far easier to storm, but the terrorists had taken the kids deeper in, forcing them into a large conference room that they could defend more easily. "Sometimes they're hostages, sometimes they're victims, sometimes they're taken and turned into child soldiers if they're mutants - hell, sometimes they're bred from sperm and ova for that. You haven't read the Taygetos file yet, have you?"

"I only skimmed it," she admitted, unable to meet his eyes. "The kid stuff makes me uncomfortable and angry and I've been outta sorts lately with personal stuff so I couldn't make myself read that stuff just yet." She'd dropped the Taygetos file almost as soon as she'd opened it up. The very idea of breeding children for weapons like that still made her stomach turn.

"I hate to say it, but you get used to it. Children are vulnerable, and bad people take advantage of that." Scott crouched down beside the door, thinking. "So which of us goes in first?" he asked, the simulation still frozen around him. It was, of course, a test.

She didn't want to get used to it and the idea that she would almost made her turn heel and storm out of not only the Danger Room but the mansion all together. Her pride and anger wouldn't allow it however. "What else do we know about the situation? Other than there are mutants and kids inside? Any read on powers or weapons?"

"Unidentified energy projectors, and a telepath masking them," Scott said. The Danger Room couldn't duplicate telepathy, obviously, but the computer could make a judgment based on the information it had about a given X-Men's mental defenses and the level of skill programmed for the hypothetical telepath and deem someone 'tagged'.

"Great," the giantess sighed, blowing her hair out of her face once more. 'Unidentified energy projectors' was just fancy talk for 'big damn guns and zappers' which meant heavy fire coming at the door they would be bursting through. And being what she was, it was the perfect set up for Lil to take the lead. "Guess I'm up on the front line unless you wanna take the first wave." He was the leader after all and no where in her mind had the possibility flickered to life that she would be calling shots.

"No, I have no issue with you storming in there first," Scott said with a very faint smile, then looked up in the general direction of the control booth. "Computer, begin simulation," he called, and suddenly there was noise - muffled shouting from outside, the sound of a helicopter circling the area, everything you'd expect in a crisis.

The hair on the back of Lil's neck stood on end when the scene came to life. Fucking great, she thought to herself, taking a deep breath before looking back at Summers with surprisingly stoic expression. Diamond Lil wasn't going to screw this up. A final nod and the blonde woman kicked in the door, automatically falling into a ready stance for whatever was thrown at her.

What came at her was a sheet of flames, produced by one of the drones disguised as a terrorist. There was immediate screaming from the 'children' huddled here and there on the floor; the terrorists were standing among them, all but using them as human shields.

Lil'd been forced to close her eyes when the wave of fire struck. She couldn't feel the heat or be burnt by it but the light it produced had made seeing difficult. When she did get her sight back, the blonde wished she hadn't. Her lip curled as did her fists. "Scott," Lil called over her shoulder, not letting her gaze leave the men, "what the hell am I supposed to do?"

One of the terrorist-drones reached down and pulled a child into his arms, holding the shrieking little girl in front of his chest and shouting profanities at Lil. The others would get the same idea soon, Scott knew, and took the man down with a pinpoint optic blast to the side of the head. He fell, the child falling on top of him, and although Scott knew it wasn't real, Scott couldn't quite hold back a wince.

"Don't hesitate," he barked at Lil. "You're losing your advantage!"

She cursed to herself more out of frustration than anger before springing into action. Another of the Danger Room generated baddies was making his move, reaching out for one of the crying tots but was stopped short by a 160lb canon ball slamming into his chest at full speed. Lil grunted at the forceful-but-painless-for-her impact then stomped on the fallen man's spleen to keep him down before turning back to the terrorists who remained.

One of the children had fallen over while trying to get away from Lil and the terrorist, and was crawling away, screaming. The terrorist running for Lil didn't seem to notice the child in his path. Scott, who had pounced on the child atop the drone he'd taken down and whirled to deposit it at a safe distance, saw it and quite coldly decided not to blast the terrorist-drone. Time to see what Lil did.

Lil's stomach dropped when she saw the accident in her mind's eye. "Fuck," she spat and took off running in the direction of the terrorist and child. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. The blonde woman wasn't the fastest of mutants and she knew it so instead of trying to grab the kid and get out of the way, she did the only thing she could think of. When she was close enough, Lil dove for the toddler, scooping him up. Her arms wrapped around the squirming, crying form and held the child to her chest as she rolled onto her side, using the momentum of her run to propel her at the terrorist's legs, striking him like a bowling ball down an alley while her diamond hard frame acted like a shield, protecting the kid as the man tripped over her.

The Canadian continued her roll, coming to her feet with her charge in her arms. "This is fucking ridiculous," Lil yelled at Scott.

Scott ignored her shout - they were really going to have to talk about staying focused in Danger Room scenarios - and concentrated on taking down another drone taking potshots at him from inside the room's small kitchenette. Inwardly, however, he was keeping track of the shifting variables, knowing that the really nasty surprise was coming up. Right about...

"You're not taking me alive!" one of the drones shouted in a very good impression of an overly excited fanatic who was perfectly prepared to escalate the situation as far as it took to do some real damage before he was taken down. "Race traitors! Our people will remember this day!"

And he started firing off energy blasts - at the children.

"Hey!" Lil hollered at the terrorist after tucking the child in her arms behind a large piece of furniture when the first shot ripped through the room. Get his attention away from the innocents and onto her. "Pick on someone your own size!" With no weapons but her own body, the blonde woman charged the drone, trying her best to block out the screams that would certainly haunt her sleep that night. When the blasts turned on her, the Amazon took a hit to the shoulder and another to the leg which caused her to stumble slightly but not fall. Wouldn't allow herself to. There was pain, yes, but no blood. No reason to fail.

Another hit caught her square in the chest. With a grunt, Lil grabbed the drone's arm and twisted hard as she spun. He dropped to a knee and the blonde brought her own up to smash against his face. Repeatedly.

"Computer, end program," Scott's voice said amidst the din, and Lil found herself whaling on a featureless drone that was abruptly not fighting back. "Program's over, Lil," Scott went on, almost gently. He was standing where he had been, not moving towards her.

Coming back into her mind, Lil let the limp drone drop to the ground before whirling to face Scott. "You're fucking twisted, you know that?" she said, a lock of gold hanging loose over one eye. "You programed this thing to shoot kids?"

"Even worse," he said, his voice perfectly calm, "I programmed it to shoot kids specifically to see your reaction." He raised a hand before she could respond. "Wait. Think past the urge to snarl at me - I concede that I deserve it. Assess your own reaction."

"My own reaction?" Lil parroted in disbelief. "I wanted to kill him." One hand gestured to the drone laying slumped on the floor. "I wished I had a gun or some kinda boom powers so I could shoot his head off his shoulders."

"Perfectly normal reaction," Scott observed, more quietly.

Lil's eyes narrowed at the field leader. "Which means what?"

"It means that having it, and knowing that you're having it, is the first step to learning how to rise above it. Because you have to," Scott said, and his gaze strayed back to the drones, a flash of pain visible just briefly in his real eye as the smaller drones, the children, started to return to the 'barn'. "Because X-Men aren't supposed to kill."

"I didn't kill," the blonde woman pointed out, still not completely in control of the temper that had risen inside her during the scenario. "I didn't kill the damned thing even after it shot the kids." Lil knew the 'no killing code' and had no intention of ever breaking it despite the urge to have broken the terrorist's neck.

"What if this had been real? I watched you. All that adrenalin and anger. If those had been real children..." He looked up at her before she could answer. "I'm not trying to push you, Lil, or taunt you," he said. "And I sure as hell don't want you to ever shut off your emotions completely when you're in a situation like this. But you have to figure out a way to channel it a little better. What was all the shouting at me about?"

"You were the one controlling it." The one who'd set it up. Who'd put those children there. And the terrorists. "If it had been real, it wouldn't have been just the two of us going in there. We would have had more people, assigned to different tasks - taking down the terrorists, getting the kids out. Having to do both was fucking insane and yes, I was pissed about it."

"I conceded that at the start, remember? But on the other hand, you can't ever depend on reasonable odds staying reasonable," Scott said. "Or on a plan holding up, rather than collapsing spectacularly. What if we'd had another two coming via the roof, like I did in Rio years ago - except the bad guys had a sniper we weren't aware of? It's not an invalid exercise, as much as it may have looked like me being sadistic for the sake of it."

"I didn't say it was invalid." Lil recognized that she was getting defensive but found herself having little control over the reaction. "You were the one who - you know what," she said suddenly shaking her head. "Nevermind. Just nevermind. I'll keep my big trap shut next time."

"Lil, it's okay. Really. It was a nasty trick, and just because I pull them on everybody doesn't mean you have to laugh it off." Scott was watching her intently, willing her to think beyond the defensiveness and see that he was trying to talk to her as Lil and Scott here, as much as trainee and team leader. "All I want you to take away from this is that you've discovered a button that can get pushed, in a combat situation. It's not even a particularly uncommon one - most human beings have trouble with the idea of children in danger. It's learning how to work around it that's the key. Look, I can talk about that Rio mission on the intellectual level now, four years later. But when we were actually in the midst of it I was scared to death."

The tall blonde continued to scowl though it was directed at the floor instead of him. It was clear Lil didn't appreciate the scenario she'd been thrown and the events that had occurred during it but she'd already said her piece. Mouthing off any more could mean a one way ticket back home. "Other than wanting to beat the drone's nose into his brain, what do I need to work on?"

Scott managed not to sigh. "You tell me," he invited, not harshly. "Self-assessment's as valuable as anything I might say to you."

Lil wasn't able to hold back hers. Wonderful. "I didn't react fast enough when it started." True, she'd been waiting for more orders but she was rapidly growing more and more annoyed with the whole conversation and would rather it just be over. "I hesitated and it coulda cost lives." While it hadn't, she'd already made the decision that next time she was going to follow her instincts and just go.

"Some of that's the 'but this isn't real!' factor," Scott said. "Which is always an issue, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. Practicing decision-making at speed is the point of this, really." He paused, trying to figure out how to put this into words. "You notice I didn't move very far into the room," he said. "I found a place to shoot from, so I could take down the hostiles and cover you. It was actually ideal - I shouldn't be going hand-to-hand unless it's unavoidable, because my ability's much more useful with at least a little bit of distance. So if that was my strategy, and why, what was yours?"

She'd never been good at strategy and planning and tactics. Hit now; think later unless specifically ordered to do something. Diamond Lil wasn't meant to lead teams in anyway except through the door. "Seeing as I don't have blasty powers like yours - or a gun - I don't have much of a choice but to get into hand-to-hand stuff. And I can take pretty much anything thrown at me so I guess I was just trying to get their attention focused on me so they'd lay off the kids."

"Careful about thinking about yourself as a bullet sponge," Scott said, "because there's always someone out there who can take you down, but yes. Who should I have been looking specifically to take down, to let you focus on taking down the ones threatening the kids directly?"

"Whichever one was the telepath," Lil replied quickly. She knew her weaknesses, knew where she was vulnerable even if she didn't like to admit it. Bullets and blasts had never been a problem for her but aim for the brain and the Amazon was in trouble.

"Right." Scott's smile was quick, but pleased. He inclined his head in the direction of the door, then turned that way himself. "Not bad, all in all. I'm going to have to look at the tape, obviously, but your reflexes were good. Sometimes you very big people aren't quite as nimble as you should be, but you don't seem to have that problem."

She hurried after him, brow drawn in confusion. Lil doubted she would ever understand this man. "You can thank Logan for that. Had to spend a lotta time focusing on reflexes and stuff when I first started my training. Lotsa martial arts and stuff." 'Stuff' mostly being several failed attempts at gymnastics-infused techniques.

"Mmm," was Scott's vaguely amused-sounding comment to that. "Either way. Points of strength, points to work on. I'll get you a full assessment before your next run."

Another nod and the blonde kept on his heels. "Thanks. Next run can we skip the kids getting killed?" she requested. "I get the necessity for it and all that but I'd really rather not have to do this again for awhile."

"Absolutely." A brief pause. "So long as you make an appointment to have a cup of tea with Charles and talk about how to cope with situations like that."

His order that she talk to the head of the mansion caused Lil to come to a dead stop. "W-What? I don't need to talk to him about that. They weren't real." The fear of screwing up in front of Scott was bad enough but in front of Professor Xavier? Might as well buy herself a ticket home now. "Besides, I don't like tea."

Scott stopped, turning towards her, a little surprised by the force of the reaction. "Lil, we all talk to Charles. About problems with training, about things that happen in the field." He frowned suddenly. "That wasn't some sort of threat, you know. Yes, I know he can be a little intimidating, but he's not just the man who writes the cheques."

Lil continued to frown at Scott as she wrung her hands in front of her. She'd been avoiding a meeting with him for as long as possible, dreading that he'd take one look into her brain and send her right back to Canada. "I don't really think I have a problem. You said it's not an uncommon button - kids getting killed. I was just unprepared, that's all."

Scott took a deep breath and then let it out, managing - if only just - to keep the troubled look off his face. Was she afraid of Charles? He smiled instead. "Okay then," he said simply. "I guess we'll leave it there for now."

Shoulders relaxed slightly. "Okay then," Lil repeated, feeling much more relieved now that he'd stopped pushing it. "Good. So we'll talk about next time after you watch the tapes then, yeah?"

"Yeah." He kept the smile on, gesturing for her to precede him out of the Danger Room. "I'll get on that soon." Damn. He was beginning to think there was a real problem here.