Marie and Crystal - Danger Room Fun

[x-aerial.livejournal.com]

Rogue takes the unnamed trainee (referred to as 'Hey you' in the log) for her first Danger Room run.



"Ok, so...well what do Ah call you until you settle on your trainee name?" Marie said, looking over at Crystal in her training leathers. "Ah know it seems silly, like Ah could just call you Crystal or whatever, but that's an important part of the training. To know that when we're wearing these, we're different. Ah'm not Marie, part time college student...Ah'm Rogue, a fully trained and capable X-Man."

"I did not think that we were supposed to choose our own trainee names," the newest trainee replied, not quite comfortable in the grey outfit she now wore. While she had worn team leathers before, and this particular set was designed specifically for her, she still found the idea of being in the leather outfit rather restricting. "That would defeat part of the purpose of it, would it not? For the time being, you can choose one from the selections offered if you wish. Perhaps another post to the team journal is in order to see if more people wish to give input as to my official trainee name."

"Whatever floats your boat," Marie replied. "The rules tend to be somewhat flexible, to be honest. Some folks just pick from the names suggested, some put it to a vote. Ah guess Ah can just call you 'Hey you' since no one else is around."

Crystal nodded, although she would have preferred Marie pick a name rather than call her 'Hey you,' although she supposed it was also a valid suggestion for a trainee name. "I believe that I will put it to a vote," she said, then added, with a bit of a smile, "we can offer 'Hey You' as another option."

Marie smiled back. "Ah guess so. Pushing a few buttons, she stepped into the Danger Room and waited for Crystal to follow. "Have you ever run anything in here before?" she asked the blonde after the door had closed behind the pair.

Crystal shook her head. "No, this is my first time in the Danger Room."

Punching a few buttons on the inside, the room shifted and changed around the two women. "Then we'll start with an obstacle course. There's safeties set for all the scenarios, but that doesn't mean you won't end up with bruises and the like. Trainees generally don't get here until they're a bit further along in training, but you're kinda different then most folks when they first start. There's an observation chamber up top and sometimes you'll run through stuff while someone is up there, but figured for your first time, might be nice to have some company." Lifting up slightly to hover a few inches from the ground, the Southern girl grinned. "Plus a bit of competition sometimes helps give things an edge. Ready?"

The blonde quickly took in their "new" surroundings, nodded once, then rose up in the air as Rogue had done. "Ready."

Reaching out, Marie pushed one final button and a barrage of balls begin shooting across the room, bouncing back and forth between the two walls. "There will be a button to hit at the end, when you make it through," she said, before shooting off to maneuver through the balls, punching those that got to close out of the way."

Crystal eyed the bouncing balls as Marie spoke, then lifted herself higher into the air and headed straight for the opposite side of the room. Any ball that came her way quickly moved away from her as it hit the invisible air-shield Crystal had set up around her body.


Marie had paused after she'd made it through to watch the remainder of Crystal's progress, nodding briefly in approval at her choice in techniques. "Hey you, this way next," she said with a wink and a grin, taking off through a series of swinging axes, agily swerving around, under, and between as needed to make it through without getting hit.

Crystal flew after Marie, moving this way and that in an attempt to avoid the various sharp-looking objects that were swinging in the direction she needed to go. She had been flying for ten years, but could not fly and move as fast as Marie could. The Attilani could try to make up for it, though; the air around her changed, both allowing her to move faster and slowing the movement of the axes with wind pushing against them. Still, there were a lot of axes, and she had several near misses.

The younger woman was congratulating herself when a wall-to-wall pattern of red lasers spread across a section of the room.

"You'll hear a buzzer if you hit any," Rogue explained before starting through the third part of the course.Slipping between lasers, she twisted and turned, sometimes walking on her hands or floating in midair between lasers as she made her way across.

Rogue's strategy was out of the question for the currently named "Hey you." While many mutants could fly (although not as many could as some people seemed to think; comic books and novels about people with powers were so misleading sometimes) they flew in many different ways, and Crystal and Marie moved about in the air in vastly different manners. Crystal had done her own training on aerial maneuverability, but not like this. While Marie had moved quickly though the lasers, Crystal's movements were slow and thought-out. She was able to slip through a few easily, but others proved to be a challenge, and the buzzer sounded on several occasions before Crystal was through to the other side.

"That was one of the best first attempts Ah've seen on that part. It's pretty tricky, but part of the point is to show that some folks powers are better suited to it then others. Being on the team means that we acknowledge our strengths and our weaknesses. For instance, put me up against somethin' that needs to be attacked or defended against long range and unless Ah've got just the right thing to throw, all the rest of my powers are useless."

"I threw Marius at a dinosaur once," Crystal remarked. "He asked me to do so, and it actually worked quite well, although he was admittedly messy afterwards. It was quite a unique experience, but it did involve teamwork and creative uses of mutant abilities."

Marie blinked a few times before letting out a laugh. "Wow. Sometimes Ah just get struck by the things we say so calmly that most people would either lock us up in a loony bin for saying or run screaming from the room." She shook her head before continuing and gestured to the next part of the course, which looked like a bunch of red hula hoops on the floor and hanging in midair. "For this one, your color is yellow and mine is green. You have to either fly through or hop through your colors without making a mistake and you only have 15 seconds to get from one to the next. You start it by touching any of the red ones and then the colors will change to show which one comes next."

Crystal nodded. Figuring that the hoops weren't supposed to be moved, she reached down to touch a hoop rather than lifting it up into the air into her hand. Hoops nearby changed colors, and Crystal hopped into a yellow one. Yellow was her color after all. Next, she flew through a yellow hoop, looking out for the next hoop of the same color.

Instead of taking the lead during this stage, Marie watched Crystal, observing her strategy and making notes for the review session after the Danger Room run was over. Marie then reached out to touch one of the hoops herself and began moving through the green ones, catching up with Crystal, but not surpassing her by the end of the run. "Having fun yet?" she asked, looking at the other woman out of the corner of her eye.

"Am I supposed to be having fun?" Crystal asked, not sure if her new teammate was being serious or not. "I suppose I have been too busy concentrating on getting through the obstacles to consider whether or not it is also fun."

A moment later, flaming arrows were shot at them, seeming to come from nowhere.

"Ah hope that training is fun sometimes," Marie said. "It won't always be and most missions aren't really fun, but things like this, pushing ourselves and our powers to accomplish things..well, Ah hope that is fun." And with that, she shot through the arrows.

Crystal eyed the arrows and moved air away from them, extinguishing their flames. Wind moved out from around her body, altering the path of the arrows and slowing their flight. New arrows continued to soar in her direction, and it was an ongoing process of removing the flames and redirecting arrows. While not all of them could be moved enough in order to not hit her, their speed was slowed enough to where they would not have caused much harm even if they had been real arrows with steel tips. When the arrows stopped speeding her way, Crystal saw Marie leaning against the wall, next to a button coming out of the wall. As she had been told to do at the beginning, Crystal pushed it.

The room behind them shifted, the five obstacles they'd already passed through being replaced by five new ones, more challenging than the first set. "And that's the second lesson of the day - just when you think it's over, it's usually just getting started." With a mock salute, Marie executed a back flip and shot off to start her way back to the otherside.