xp_logs | Ev & Sooraya, Tuesday afternoon

Ev and Sooraya continue their training. Sooraya shows how much she's accomplished since their first meeting, and Ev makes a rookie mistake when synching to her.

This time, Ev outfitted himself in loose, flowy clothing: tan linen pants and a white linen shirt. No tight, ill-fitting leathers this time. He wanted to see what Sooraya had learned since last they met, and maybe accompany her to the next level by fully synching with her. It had been a while since he had done that rather than just manifesting through his aura. So this would be a test for him, too.

When he stepped into the Danger Room, it was in its normal cold, steel, sterile state. It made him feel out of place. As the door closed behind him, he tapped a few buttons on an interior wall panel, the walls shimmered, and he was instantly cast in the illusion of a secluded island beach. Though with his dress it made him feel like an actor in a Sandals resort commercial, it would feel right at home with Sooraya's power.

"Well... this is different..." Sooraya observed when she entered the room, dressed in her X-men leathers and still fastening her hood into place. "What brought this on?" She asked once she was finished, gesturing to the island beach around them, the water lapping at the sand only a few meters away.

Ev took a deep breath of the artificial (yet so realistic) ocean air, and smiled when he exhaled. "It seems like the appropriate ecosystem for transforming into sand," he answered. "And it's serene. How're you doing?"

"It's an improvement to getting shot at with laser beams or other 'fun' things." She replied as she closed her for a moment and took in the sea air. "And I'be been busy, but am pretty well. Just didn't have the chance to practice a lot the last few days." Sooraya replied. "There was some urgent work at my internship that needed to dealt with and I was drafted to help."

"Oh? Where do you intern? I imagine that competes with being shot at with laser beams as 'fun.'"

"Human Rights Watch. And fun is not the word I'd use, but it's interesting and rewarding. I do research into human rights violations, help to interview people, that kind of thing." Sooraya explained as finally got her hood fitted the way she wanted it to fit.

"Very cool. All right, so, powers." He clapped his hands. "Let's start with showing me how far you've gotten since our last meeting. How tightly can you condense yourself?"

"Well, I am feeling a lot less of the resistance I mentioned before and that makes that I can pack the sand tighter." Sooraya fiddled with the edge of her hood as she admitted. "I found that I can pack myself tightly enough to stop small arms fire, much like a sand bag does. Stopped different calibers even."

Ev's eyebrows perked up. "Was this something you learned here or in the field? Either way, that's fantastic work. How quickly can you transform and pack yourself like that? You could save someone's life with that some day."

"I have used the barrier idea before in the field, but never thought it could stop bullets. Then one days I was zapping and found a channel that was talking about how sand bags worked." Sooraya explained. "I decided to test it once I felt I was able to pack myself quite tightly and it worked. It still takes some time though to compact myself enough though..."

Another thing to work on, Ev noted to himself. "You'll get there. Show me what you can do now. Transform and condense. If you don't mind, I shoot you." He tapped a key on the control panel, and a large machine gun turret that would have been appropriate for a helicopter gunship came out from the trunk of a palm tree. He grinned. "When you're ready."

"Seriously?" Sooraya tentatively eyed the machine gun. "Seriously! I only tried it with small arms." She protested one final time before sighing and dissolving into her sand form. As soon as she had shifted she started gathering herself in, packing the particles together as tightly as she could manage.

Ev laughed heartily and retracted the cannon. "You flyboys crack me up," he said, typing in another command to call up a much less terrifying entry from the Danger Room's arsenal, a simple shotgun. "Ready? Shots are fired every two to three seconds. Three, two, one . . ." He tapped a button and the otherwise serene landscape was disturbed by the loud bang of the gun.

Sooraya had pulled together in the general dimensions of a sand bag, though it was hovering in the air. The bullet penetrated an inch or three before she felt it come to a stand still, though another one almost seemed to come immediately. Three more shots followed in quick succession, all stopping after penetrating a few inches.

With the Danger Room itself recording the data he wanted, Ev could focus entirely on Sooraya. He disengaged the gun after the sixth round and applauded her. "Brilliant. Well done. How do you feel?"

She assumed her human shape. "Pretty good, actually. I was worried at the end if I could keep it together enough to stop the rounds, but I did it." Sooraya commented satisfied. "Might not be a human shape yet, but I think this is a real good addition to my skills."

"Absolutely. No doubt your resiliency will increase the more you train." A thought occurred to Ev, and he tapped a few keys on the tree-gun's console. He started to glow, casting a rainbow-colored haze that made this island even more of a paradise. "I'd like to try, if you don't mind. I might have some more ideas if I take a walk in your shoes."

"That's alright. Anything I need to do or not do?"

Ev walked over to her as his aura grew brighter, synchronizing fully with her powers. "Stand over where I was, for safety. And maybe get someone with a healing factor on the line, just in case." He smiled reassuringly at her, though; just a joke, no need for concern.

Sooraya took a few steps back, staring at the growing luminescence. "Not very discrete is it, with all this light? Or can you also synchronize with people without it?"

"Not so much when it comes to fully physical mutations," Ev answered before seemingly dissolving into a swirling 200-plus-pound cloud of multicolored dust, like a discarded sand mandala. Last time they had met, Sooraya told him that she maintained awareness "in some form," but he did not know what to expect. He was surprised to find himself perceiving everything as if he still had eyes and ears. It must have been some inexplicable psionic effect. He would have laughed with amusement if he could. Instead, the cloud vibrated.

He "heard" the gun cock and was snapped back to reality. Recalling his own instructions to Sooraya, he pulled himself in as closely as he could, a couple hundred trillion grains of sparkling sand flowing like water into a dense, floating brick. He felt cramped, for lack of a better word. Rigid, strained. Almost claustrophobic. He did not have time to ruminate, though, as the gun blast rang out, and he "felt" the bullet piercing through him, only to be stopped less than an inch from his surface. The second, third, and fourth bullets penetrated a little further, and he felt his grasp on his solid form slipping, but he did not disintegrate until the sixth bullet.

"It's weird seeing it from this side." Sooraya commented as she came closer once the bullets had stopping firing. She picked up one of the slugs from the ground, studying it for a moment. "In this form the bullets are almost unrecognizable. I wonder... how thick or tightly packed the barrier has to be at a minimum, so one can use the rest to provide the largest amount of cover."

Returning to normal was easy, even after the exertion. The dispersed sand cloud swirled and condensed into humanoid form, and after a moment, solidified into Everett Thomas. "That's something you can probably calculate yourself with just bags of sand and a gun. Don't need to guinea pig yourself for that."

"Eep!!!" Sooraya flushed red and immediately turned her back to him. "You know... you do have to remember to take shape in your clothes, Everett!"

What followed was a scene straight out of a cartoon. Ev wore a confused expression at Sooraya's sudden fluster, looked down, realized his clothes were still lying in a heap next to him, and then covered his shame with his hands with lightning speed.

"I'm so so sorry!" he apologized, pulling on his clothes as quickly as he could to save them further embarrassment. So much for that brilliant plan with this outfit. If Wanda or Scott or Clint were to learn about this, he would never hear the end of it. "That was entirely unintentional, I swear."

Sooraya kept her back to him till she was pretty sure he was dressed again, but the fluster faded soon and when she turned around again she was holding a hand to her mouth to stifle her laughter. "If we are going to keep practicing together, why don't we see about getting one of these..." She pinched the sleeve of her shirt. "...made for you? There is a reason I train in them."

He had just finished buttoning his shirt when she turned to face him, but he still felt under-dressed. He was no prude, but typically he gave women a warning before he undressed. And such a rookie mistake, too. That was the real shame. "Had I been paying proper attention, I wouldn't have just made such an ass of myself..."

"Like I said, don't worry about it. There are worse things. At least you didn't get stuck in a pile of sand like I did when I first got my powers. Poor Moira those first couple of weeks..." Sooraya finally had to laugh. "So... what was the next thing you have in mind?"

"I think we should focus on stamina," he suggested, meeting her eyes like an adult who had not just exposed himself to a woman 15 years his junior. "You're right, it's difficult to pull in so tightly for long, so that's what you need to work on."

"Sounds good to me." Sooraya replied thoughtfully. "At the moment staying this packed together takes up too much of my attention also. I need to be able to focus on other things before I can start making more complex shapes. Alright, let's get to work." She dissolved into her sand form again, once more pulling herself together to form a shield.