Log: Marius & Laurie: Training footage

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Laurie and Marius decide to review their latest Danger room logs over popcorn.



"Well, no one can say we didn't start well enough," Marius remarked, expertly flipping a piece of popcorn into his mouth. "Designatin' roles about who was to climb and who was to defend early on an' that saved a bit of time."

"True, although I think that ice obstacle at the very first turn was a little unfair," Laurie noted, taking a handful of popcorn from the bucket and dropping a few kernels in her mouth. "Who has the record for earliest wipe this month?"

"Not quite sure. Don't tend to review the other recordings unless I've heard something especially hilarious." Marius used the foot braced against the console to swivel his chair slightly. "Huh. Didn't even notice you takin' out that drone at the time. Thanks for that. I was a bit busy with the rope."

"You seemed a bit busy at the time, yes," Laurie noted, readjusting her sitting position after one leg decided to fall asleep. Sitting in a chair indian position was all well and good, but then your limbs decided to go to sleep and it all went wrong from there. She flapped her foot slightly to see if it would wake up into pins and needles. "I'm not entirely sure that crocodiles weren't overkill by whoever designed this though, and the random monkey was just cruel."

"The random monkey leads me to believe this was a scenario originally constructed for Angel," replied the Australian. "As does the eight-foot drop. There seems to be a distinct flier bias involved." He wrinkled his nose at the sounds of a splash. "I'm certain they programme water elements for spite. I don't care if you're given a barrel to cling to, it's unreasonable to ask one to complete an obstacle course in wet leather."

"I don't know, I bet I could make us both a tidy bit of money selling the pictures of that particular moment on ebay, or the later, modelesque 'removing your jacket' moment. I think it was at the waterfall point where I was starting to wish I didn't have classes in the morning, I have bruises in some particularly unmentionable places," Laurie observed, wincing at the scream she'd made before they dropped off the cliff. "How did you manage to wedge yourself in the barrel? I didn't even see you move."

"Pure talent, much like the ability to remove those articles of clothing which so cruelly contain my sculpted physique at the least of opportunities." Marius crunched a few more kernals and pointed at the screen. "Right, here's where it started to turn. When has it ever been advisable to pull a random lever? I was almost to you."

"It was a bright blue lever, and there were hippos," Laurie protested, the dull blush on her cheeks advertising the fact that she knew it had been a particularly ill advised strategic move. "It wasn't like it was a big red shiny button, even I know not to push those. How's your head by the way?"

"Impenetrable as always, mercifully." Marius winced at the monitor. "Annnd here's about the time I gave yours a good bang in return. Apologies. I think I overestimated the required force of boosties-given-beneath-an-overhang."

"Luckily for you, Jean was on hand with advil afterwards," Laurie noted, but she turned a grin toward her companion. "Although I've got to say, you're much heavier then you look, I almost dropped you when I tried to lift you up. Sure you haven't been partaking in one too many of Lorna's pies?"


Without even turning his head, Marius flicked a piece of popcorn into the side of Laurie's head. "Is this a direction you wish to pursue? You, who may recall we still have ahead of us an incident where a certain someone had a climbing rope split in mid-ascent? And yes, perhaps the rope had been pre-severed, but I have my doubts. Ah, wait, I misremember -- before that is the bit where I nearly slipped off the edge only to have you come barreling into me and hurling me into the water trap. Again."

Laurie giggled as the popcorn bounced off the side of her head, unable to help herself. "Water traps and you obviously have a torrid romance going, you wouldn't want to break their poor fragile hearts by denying them your august presence," she said, finally collecting herself enough to grab another handful of popcorn before pointing toward the screen. "Now that is just dirty pool. Greasing the rope, I call foul."

"Perhaps it was merely a fine coating of lard oozed from my corpulent form in the course of my own ascent." Marius scratched his head. "Here, do you suppose it'd be a security breach to make a copy of the bit where I take that medicine ball to the back of the head? It's always so difficult to find mum a good birthday present."

"I think they have pills for oozing problems," Laurie noted helpfully, taking a sip of her soda and wincing at the sight of her bouncing off one of the obsticles, she hadn't expected a wall to be quite so stealthy. "And what sort of present is that for a mother?"


"Ah, you never met my mother, did you? Trust me when I say she would cherish it always." Marius kicked his feet from the console and swiveled his chair towards Laurie as the recording came to an end with a final painful crash. He leaned forward intently, elbows on his knees and fingers steepled over his popcorn. "So, our Danger Room run. Now, what have we learned from our performance?"

"One, we'd make an incredible popcorn movie, two, we really need to find something for Garrison and Paige to do besides torture us, and three, never do any kind of X-man mission with you where it involves water," Laurie replied, ticking off her points using the fingers of one hand.

Marius nodded gravely. "Precisely. Although you forgot four, to whit, you are never to pull a lever. Ever. If you see a lever, you are to ask permission, or make known your intentions to pull it. Perhaps you may even call for someone else to do the pullin'. But above all, what we should take from this lesson is this: levers are not for you." He tilted his head and hesitated. "And perhaps that I should in the future be a bit more cautious when gauging the strength involved in boostin' another party onto a ledge."

"Levers, not for me, got it. We could also write a treatise on 'Medicine balls and how to avoid them'," Laurie mused, munching on her last bit of popcorn. "So, do you think they'd protest if we deleted the entire thing and refused to speak of it ever again?"

Marius listed over to one side until one elbow hit the control panel. "You mean, if I perhaps accidentally leaned on the keyboard? And . . . er . . . hit it a few more times to get to the file option . . . slip so as to scroll down a bit and, yes, confirm deletion . . . an' then discover we don't have systems permission for that. Bugger." The boy contemplated this for a moment, then swiveled back to Laurie with a bright smile. "So, never speak of it again, did you say?"