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xp_logsKitty and Garrison are fighting a losing battle against the nanites infesting the Danger Room. So they make a very risky decision to open Pandora's Box.
{System infiltration is at 27%. Nanite replication has begun to access our core processing capacity in order to accelerate their growth. The potential for an irreversible cascade is growing.} Viv's preternaturally calm voice ticked through the status report as they worked at their consoles. The VI's expanded processing speed and capacity had immediately grasped the exact nature and scope of the nanite invasion, harnessing the internal defensive systems like a body marshalling white blood cells to thwart a virus. But the sheer volume of nanites and the speed with which they increased stopped their initial gains, and now they were at a stalemate.
"I've slaved both backup generators into the DR grid. They're both screaming red alerts at me, so... that doesn't seem good." Why couldn't Hank or Doug be here right now, Kane thought for the hundredth time. Or Forge. Hell, he'd counter the attack, turn them into a sexy robot and take them to prom before it was time for dinner.
"Uh. No. Very much not good." Kitty chewed her lip and reached over, trying to figure out what was going wrong. She stared at Kane's console - then tapped a line of code. "Here. I think you missed something." She wasn't sure if that was the problem. They were in the unknown now and she didn't know how introducing the VI into the system was going to impact the danger room.
"Ah, right, I missed the... the..." Kane sighed. "Viv, what did I miss?"
{That is the internal security firewall. It isolates the Danger Room processing centres from the internal mansion security systems. The nanites have concentrated on attacking it. If they are successful in breaching it, they will have access to the entire mansion security, including the science labs and databases.} Viv's tone was calm, but it sounded serious.
"And Cerebro." Kitty's eyes met Kane's. They both knew what could happen if Cerebro was infected - or at least, it was easy to imagine.
Kitty turned back to her terminal. "We need to secure the firewall and fast. I don't know what more to do though." She rubbed her forehead. It felt as if they'd been staring at code for days even though it hadn't been long at all. She wondered what it was like on the outside - who knew what the nanites had done.
"Well, based on my advanced knowledge of computer programming, Kitty, I suggest we turn it on and off a couple of times." Kane yelled, frustrated to be helpless. "I'm just the meathead who drives the operating system!"
{If I may interject. My operating protocols currently restrict my range of function to the bounds of the Danger Room itself. If I received access to the wider systems incorporated in the mansion, I project that the additional capacity would make it possible to counteract the nanites.} Viv said. {However, once access is granted, this version of my system cannot be re-isolated to the Danger Room without a complete operational erasure and full re-install.}
"Shit, that would be... months... or years."
"And she's untested. I mean, mostly." Kitty chewed her lip. "What do you think, Kane? Is there any other way around this?" Her stomach sank as she wondered if she'd unleashed a power that they couldn't control.
She leaned in, whispering though Viv wasn't actually a person. "If we let Viv loose, is that going to be any different than the nanites?"
"If we don't, we're getting the nanites regardless." Kane said. "You're the computer brain. I don't see another option. If you don't, I say we give it a shot."
I think we're going to regret this. But Kitty was the one who had opened this Pandora's box - there was no turning back now. A bad choice - well, at least they still had choices. If the nanites kept going, there wouldn't be anyone left to choose for.
Quietly, she typed in a few characters, paused, then finished.
"It's done."
-
The gamble pays off, and the tide starts to turn.
The screens around the control room showed an impossibly tiny and yet titanic battle. Viv's operating system was quickly overwhelming the nanites, forcing them away from the labs and the wider mansion systems, isolating them into small groups and overwhelming their capacity, leaving clouds of black electronic dust behind as they died.
{We have re-established control over 87% of the existing systems. I calculate less than an hour before we have a complete sweep of our operation systems and eliminate the remaining nanites entirely.}
"Viv, can you get us a clearer shot of the Danger Room? What's happening in there?" Though Kitty could feel her body relaxing slightly with each black puff of dust that appeared, she wasn't entirely calm. The problem might be on its way to being solved but what if they were too late?
{Accessing... all inhabitants are in stable condition.} The participant monitors sprang back to life, showing that they might be a little banged up, but everyone trapped in the Danger Room was relatively safe at the moment.
"Can you start shutting down the scenario?"
{Yes, although it will take some time to do so safely.}
"Get it started. I'm going back down to the manual overrides. Meaning that I'm going to get a really long prybar and force the fucking doors open." Kane said.
"You want some help? Or should I stay up here?" Kitty's face betrayed that she wasn't sure whether or not to trust Viv on its own.
"I'll give you a yell if we need to get inside first. But otherwise..." Kane nodded toward the banks of computers and immediately felt silly for doing so. "Maybe see if Viv can get control back on any of the subsystems and get the safeties back online?" Overhead, the monitors showed that the team inside the Danger Room looked relatively unhurt.
"Mmm...okay. I'll do what I can." Kitty wondered if she was silly to worry about them both - Kane for braving the nanites and herself for not quite knowing what Viv might be capable of, or if they'd unleashed something beyond their control. But it's a machine, right? It only knows what we program into it... I think. She knew, however, that wasn't true. Over time, the virtual intelligence would change, modifying its behavior as it learned from the world around it. But at least they had a fail-safe for it, unlike the nanites.
She turned back to the computer bank and began typing, losing herself in code. Code wasn't emotional - at least not on its base level - and Kitty knew she was overthinking once again in an emergency situation.
"If you hear any screaming... at this point, just nuke the mansion from orbit." Kane paused at the door, giving her a serious look. "It's the only way to be sure."
And he was gone.
"Nuke it from orbit, he says," Kitty muttered. "Like it would be so easy."
She leaned on her elbows, staring at the code as it spooled out on the screen. She no longer controlled it - the numbers and symbols were going so fast that she could barely track it, black text blurring into grey. Viv could move faster than all of them--X-Men, nanites... She didn't doubt that they'd save the day this time. She just wondered what other days were to come.
-
With the scenarios starting to shut down, Wanda falls into Alex and Alison's Hamiltrash.
"Down!" someone screamed, and Alison hit the deck as a gout of flame passed over her head. She was pretty sure it hadn't been her, but honestly, this entire thing had become some surreal fever dream over the last ten minutes so she wasn't willing to definitely claim it hadn't been her. At least the music was good, what with it's repeat of the annoyingly catchy song she didn't have a name for.
Then the air itself literally seemed to catch fire off to her right where the flames passed over it. Within seconds, a wall of flame lept up, as if the fabric of reality itself was ablaze, before it began to fall apart as embers and ashy strips sloughed off and fluttered to the ground. The more the flames spread, the more the hole in the air grew. On the other side was.... wait, was that...
"Wanda?"
Wanda spilled onto the floor, spitting out both sand and a stream of curses, automatically reacting to the change in environment by covering her head and rolling away from the danger. The heat of the desert gave way to real heat of flames and her cursing only intensified.
Alex felt Wanda's sentiments - he too was sweary and annoyed. "Who gave them fucking flamethrowers?!" he yelled as he punched out another blast of energy to try and disperse the weird cloud trying to kill them. "This is a little over the top, right?"
"Eh," Alison said, ducking behind the fabric of pseudo-reality that separated one scene from the other to avoid being in the line of fire, "I feel like we've dealt with worse before?" The music still hadn't stopped, which she used to her advantage to throw a laser over her shoulder at the other deadly danger that had joined them in this little get-together.
"At least the music's good?" she didn't so much as comment as ask. It was beginning to feel a little like her catchphrase.
"Never say we've dealt with worse before," Wanda said, glaring as a screaming - no, sorry, was that singing? - robot with chainsaws for hands zipped its way towards her. It dodged a hex bolt before leaping into the air. She hesitated but instead of jumping out of the way, decided at the last moment to stay.
As it dropped towards her, singing and slashing, Wanda held up two hands to send two hex bolts that joined as one flashing up into the air. Unable to maneuver in mid-air, it meet the attack 'feet' first and exploded into dust and bits that rained around her.
"It's the flamethrowers," Alex called back, barely ducking and missing a face full of tire - he definitely felt the edges of his hair burn, tho. Well, fuck. "The singing isn't exactly endearing either," he continued, blasting the one trying to set him on fire, "but mostly it's the flamethrowers."
"None of this is, as you say, endearing." Now that she'd gotten her bearings, as much as she could, Wanda was able to determine that Betsy was not with her. Wanda huffed out a breath - hopefully, she was faring better than singing, dancing, flame wielding robots.
"They may not be endearing," Alison said, popping back up from where she'd been hiding as the singing ramped its way up to a blaring crescendo that she imagined had to have hurt the ears of everyone else (thank you power you are the best ever <3), "but they're also STUPID!" The last word was said at a yell as she absolutely unleashed hell, pouring a massively wide laser from double open palms.
The light faded and the music stopped at roughly the same time. The flamethrower robot was missing its head, exposed wiring sparking in the open air.
"Rule number one when fighting Dazzler," Alison said, pulling two fingers up to her mouth and blowing on them like they were the barrel of a smoking gun, "is silence is golden. Y'all okay?"
"Buuuuuuuuut if it was silent you wouldn't have anything to make cool lights with, so." Alex shot her a couple finger guns, grinning, before turning to Wanda. "You didn't happen to see where the others ended up, did you?"
Did other people make her feel old, Wanda thought, or was she already old? Maybe it was the finger guns. "No," she said, "the last time I saw someone, it was Betsy and we were fighting against holographic robots in a lovely desert. I lost sight of her right before I ended up here."
"Is this real fake reality walls, or fake fake reality walls?" Alison asked, as if her question made perfect sense, as she peered back and forth between Wanda's desert setting and their own original theater... robot... thing. "I'd touch it, but one of the guys who kept ending up in my classes at college kept going on about something called 'portal cuts' and... well... you get the idea."
"Maybe let's not try and find out before we find the others," Alex said, eyeing the robot. "This isn't where I want to die."
-
EMERGENCY MEETING. Betsy winds up in the Among Us sim with Sue and Artie.
The blonde slumped over, hands resting on her knees as she sucked in a breathe of air, and another before finally straightening, one hand reaching out to steady herself against the wall, drawing in first one breathe and then another before she finally pushed away. "You know, I normally love horror movies, but when we get home I'm renting the cheesiest movie and never touching another horror movie for like...a week." Finally recovered she took a shaky step forward and nodded at the door they'd just run through. "So, door A is a bust, let's see what's behind mystery door B.
Artie was still breathing hard but he took a step and rolled his shoulders, shaking out the muscle fatigue in his arms. He was still effectively powerless, illusions still not doing much against virtual reality. He held out a hand and projected, "Hold on. I'm going to call for help again."
This, illusions outside of a line of site, was exhausting. He couldn't hold it up but he knew the mansion's floor plan. Artie closed his eyes and projected, sending text up to the control room, the kitchen and the X-men's comms room. "Danger Room malfunctioning. We're trapped. Send help." They probably already knew but there was nothing wrong with sending up flares until you knew they were heard. He held it as long as he could and turned toward door B, stepping through it. He'd let the illusions vanish as they vanished and his attention shifted.
Betsy’s head was reeling. This shift had been less disorientating than the previous one, but the sudden lack of Wanda’s signature in her head still threw her for a loop. At least there wasn't any more sand, although calling her new surroundings an improvement might be pushing it. While the lighting was poor, she could make out a nondescript corridor, with grimy walls and a grated floor. The sound of trickling water seemed to be coming from all around her. Good thing their costumes included sensible footwear. She heard the door open behind her and quickly turned to face whatever new surprise she’d be facing now, her little glowing blade ready to fend off attack.
Artie held his hands up, no weapons in them and projected, "It's us! We're real, not simulations." He was a non-psi but years working with them had taught him how to give a mental handshake to new psis, the I'm here, this is me, this is the way my mind feels that wasn't quite reading thoughts. He pushed it at Betsy now in the hope she wouldn't get stabby.
There were sounds in the distance, not visible around the corner of the corridor they were in and he sighed, switching to the synthesiser. "Sue! I need you to make a wall around us, front and back, ten feet out, covering the full width of the hall. If this isn't a vacuum scenario, it's a kill shoot." Artie unholstered one of his guns and checked the clip. "On my marks, I need you to open holes in the barriers where I point so I can shoot out and close them again. Betsy, will that knife work on machinery, or do you need a weapon?" He held it out to her.
"See this...this is why I don't like video games." the blonde complained as she held out her hands, the air around them shimmering as she pulled her forcefield together, the edges of the forcefield brushing against the walls. "Kill shoot...when people start tossing around phrases like that then...it can only be a bad time."
The touch of a semi-familiar mind gave Betsy a stop. While she didn’t know either of the two new faces too well, living in the mansion for this long meant she had at least passing knowledge of what the other inhabitants felt like. “Artie…? Where did you… What?”
Then the question registered and she remembered the situation they were in. "The knife is only effective on people I’m afraid, and you two are the only ones I’ve felt around. I don’t have much experience with guns either, though,” Betsy replied. Still, she grabbed the weapon Artie handed out and aimed meticulously through the holes the other mutant indicated in the barrier.
Artie held up a hand. The shadows up ahead cleared to show a ... red guy. A life size, more realistic version of the creatures from Among Us. "One of them is the traitor, right?" Oh, the hell with it. Like he had time to figure out which robot was the bad robot.
Artie sent three quick shots into the faceplate and then two more, one into each knee. If the safeties were on, headshots would kill. If they were off, well, robots didn't need brains but probably did need knees. He didn't have that many bullets left. How many were actually needed for a kill?
Betsy’s shots were more haphazard than Artie's. She kept them to centre of mass and they did mostly hit their target. “Let me guess, another video game? Do either of you have any idea as to what is going on yet?"
Artie shrugged expansively. "No idea."
"I'm going to guess we've either been sucked into someone's nightmare, a demon realm or the Danger Room's been infected by a virus...or this is someone's idea of a prank." The blonde's eyes narrowed as she stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, glaring at the space where the control room should be. "You can let us out now Kane!"
Only silence greeted her as she turned to the other's and shrugged, "It was worth a shot. Any thoughts on how we actually get out of here?”
“I have nothing,” Betsy sighed. “I was in a desert with some angry cowboys earlier and am not even quite sure how we got out of that one. Or I got out, at least. I hope Wanda did as well.” She thought for a moment. “Before the previous scenario exploded, I saw it turn back to the Danger Room for a moment, so the virus seems most likely? If we are still in the Danger Room, can we reach the controls somehow? Or the emergency systems?"
-
With Alex blasting away on the inside and Garrison and a prybar on the outside, the doors to the Danger Room finally get forced open and everyone gets out.
Hamilbots dead, door still closed, that only meant one thing. Alex clapped his hands together, making sure everyone else was away.
"Scott's going to kill me. It's fine. I'll help with repairs." He was mostly talking to himself as he raised his hands, red energy dancing up and down his arms, preparing to blast the door down.
"Back away from the door, Alex. It's shielded. All you'll do is microwave everyone inside." The disembodied voice, slightly muffled, caught Alex off guard. There were three dull thuds on the door, obviously coming from the other side. "Can you hear that?"
Alex immediately jumped back, this time putting his hands up in surrender. "Yeah, loud and somewhat clear!"
"Alright, get closer to the door and listen for the... well, thumping." A series of hammering knocks hit the door, moving clearly down to the bottom of the door, at the junction of both sides.
"Got it." He stepped back to the door, listening as the heavy knocks went down the door.
"Ok, start directing energy at the point of sound. Start low and gradually bring it up. If you start seeing sparks, back the power off. The room is designed to absorb energy up to a certain point before reflecting it." On the other side, Kane started to work the long prybar he'd taken from the vehicle bay into the bottom edge of the door.
"Right."
Alex stepped back, carefully hitting the spot with a blast that probably wouldn't microwave a hot pocket, then notched the power up bit by bit. "Good," he muttered, "good, good..."
"Keep it coming." Kane muttered, leaning into the bar, His tremendous strength started the door to move slightly, but it stopped as it hit the emergency latch at the bottom of the door. The fusing of the manual hydraulics had stopped any normal opening of the doors, the only thing that stopped them from being manually brute forced was a latch which only had a half inch purchase. By slowly heating it up, Kane was beating he could get just enough flexibility in the metal to slip it.
He found a careful balance, watching the door and waiting for it to give. He lit up when he saw a little movement. "Almost there!"
His muscles strained as Kane matched his strength against the latch. The heated metal gave slowly, a milimetre at a time. With a tortured groan, the latch slipped just far enough off to release the doors. Garrison had to take a few steps to regain his balance as the doors popped open and his prybar nearly skewered him.
Alex immediately stepped back, dropping the attack, when the doors gave, eyes wide. "Yikes. Thanks, but also please don't stab yourself."
"You're welcome..." Kane muttered, tossing aside the bar with a clang. "Alright, everyone out. The Danger Room is officially closed."
{System infiltration is at 27%. Nanite replication has begun to access our core processing capacity in order to accelerate their growth. The potential for an irreversible cascade is growing.} Viv's preternaturally calm voice ticked through the status report as they worked at their consoles. The VI's expanded processing speed and capacity had immediately grasped the exact nature and scope of the nanite invasion, harnessing the internal defensive systems like a body marshalling white blood cells to thwart a virus. But the sheer volume of nanites and the speed with which they increased stopped their initial gains, and now they were at a stalemate.
"I've slaved both backup generators into the DR grid. They're both screaming red alerts at me, so... that doesn't seem good." Why couldn't Hank or Doug be here right now, Kane thought for the hundredth time. Or Forge. Hell, he'd counter the attack, turn them into a sexy robot and take them to prom before it was time for dinner.
"Uh. No. Very much not good." Kitty chewed her lip and reached over, trying to figure out what was going wrong. She stared at Kane's console - then tapped a line of code. "Here. I think you missed something." She wasn't sure if that was the problem. They were in the unknown now and she didn't know how introducing the VI into the system was going to impact the danger room.
"Ah, right, I missed the... the..." Kane sighed. "Viv, what did I miss?"
{That is the internal security firewall. It isolates the Danger Room processing centres from the internal mansion security systems. The nanites have concentrated on attacking it. If they are successful in breaching it, they will have access to the entire mansion security, including the science labs and databases.} Viv's tone was calm, but it sounded serious.
"And Cerebro." Kitty's eyes met Kane's. They both knew what could happen if Cerebro was infected - or at least, it was easy to imagine.
Kitty turned back to her terminal. "We need to secure the firewall and fast. I don't know what more to do though." She rubbed her forehead. It felt as if they'd been staring at code for days even though it hadn't been long at all. She wondered what it was like on the outside - who knew what the nanites had done.
"Well, based on my advanced knowledge of computer programming, Kitty, I suggest we turn it on and off a couple of times." Kane yelled, frustrated to be helpless. "I'm just the meathead who drives the operating system!"
{If I may interject. My operating protocols currently restrict my range of function to the bounds of the Danger Room itself. If I received access to the wider systems incorporated in the mansion, I project that the additional capacity would make it possible to counteract the nanites.} Viv said. {However, once access is granted, this version of my system cannot be re-isolated to the Danger Room without a complete operational erasure and full re-install.}
"Shit, that would be... months... or years."
"And she's untested. I mean, mostly." Kitty chewed her lip. "What do you think, Kane? Is there any other way around this?" Her stomach sank as she wondered if she'd unleashed a power that they couldn't control.
She leaned in, whispering though Viv wasn't actually a person. "If we let Viv loose, is that going to be any different than the nanites?"
"If we don't, we're getting the nanites regardless." Kane said. "You're the computer brain. I don't see another option. If you don't, I say we give it a shot."
I think we're going to regret this. But Kitty was the one who had opened this Pandora's box - there was no turning back now. A bad choice - well, at least they still had choices. If the nanites kept going, there wouldn't be anyone left to choose for.
Quietly, she typed in a few characters, paused, then finished.
"It's done."
-
The gamble pays off, and the tide starts to turn.
The screens around the control room showed an impossibly tiny and yet titanic battle. Viv's operating system was quickly overwhelming the nanites, forcing them away from the labs and the wider mansion systems, isolating them into small groups and overwhelming their capacity, leaving clouds of black electronic dust behind as they died.
{We have re-established control over 87% of the existing systems. I calculate less than an hour before we have a complete sweep of our operation systems and eliminate the remaining nanites entirely.}
"Viv, can you get us a clearer shot of the Danger Room? What's happening in there?" Though Kitty could feel her body relaxing slightly with each black puff of dust that appeared, she wasn't entirely calm. The problem might be on its way to being solved but what if they were too late?
{Accessing... all inhabitants are in stable condition.} The participant monitors sprang back to life, showing that they might be a little banged up, but everyone trapped in the Danger Room was relatively safe at the moment.
"Can you start shutting down the scenario?"
{Yes, although it will take some time to do so safely.}
"Get it started. I'm going back down to the manual overrides. Meaning that I'm going to get a really long prybar and force the fucking doors open." Kane said.
"You want some help? Or should I stay up here?" Kitty's face betrayed that she wasn't sure whether or not to trust Viv on its own.
"I'll give you a yell if we need to get inside first. But otherwise..." Kane nodded toward the banks of computers and immediately felt silly for doing so. "Maybe see if Viv can get control back on any of the subsystems and get the safeties back online?" Overhead, the monitors showed that the team inside the Danger Room looked relatively unhurt.
"Mmm...okay. I'll do what I can." Kitty wondered if she was silly to worry about them both - Kane for braving the nanites and herself for not quite knowing what Viv might be capable of, or if they'd unleashed something beyond their control. But it's a machine, right? It only knows what we program into it... I think. She knew, however, that wasn't true. Over time, the virtual intelligence would change, modifying its behavior as it learned from the world around it. But at least they had a fail-safe for it, unlike the nanites.
She turned back to the computer bank and began typing, losing herself in code. Code wasn't emotional - at least not on its base level - and Kitty knew she was overthinking once again in an emergency situation.
"If you hear any screaming... at this point, just nuke the mansion from orbit." Kane paused at the door, giving her a serious look. "It's the only way to be sure."
And he was gone.
"Nuke it from orbit, he says," Kitty muttered. "Like it would be so easy."
She leaned on her elbows, staring at the code as it spooled out on the screen. She no longer controlled it - the numbers and symbols were going so fast that she could barely track it, black text blurring into grey. Viv could move faster than all of them--X-Men, nanites... She didn't doubt that they'd save the day this time. She just wondered what other days were to come.
-
With the scenarios starting to shut down, Wanda falls into Alex and Alison's Hamiltrash.
"Down!" someone screamed, and Alison hit the deck as a gout of flame passed over her head. She was pretty sure it hadn't been her, but honestly, this entire thing had become some surreal fever dream over the last ten minutes so she wasn't willing to definitely claim it hadn't been her. At least the music was good, what with it's repeat of the annoyingly catchy song she didn't have a name for.
Then the air itself literally seemed to catch fire off to her right where the flames passed over it. Within seconds, a wall of flame lept up, as if the fabric of reality itself was ablaze, before it began to fall apart as embers and ashy strips sloughed off and fluttered to the ground. The more the flames spread, the more the hole in the air grew. On the other side was.... wait, was that...
"Wanda?"
Wanda spilled onto the floor, spitting out both sand and a stream of curses, automatically reacting to the change in environment by covering her head and rolling away from the danger. The heat of the desert gave way to real heat of flames and her cursing only intensified.
Alex felt Wanda's sentiments - he too was sweary and annoyed. "Who gave them fucking flamethrowers?!" he yelled as he punched out another blast of energy to try and disperse the weird cloud trying to kill them. "This is a little over the top, right?"
"Eh," Alison said, ducking behind the fabric of pseudo-reality that separated one scene from the other to avoid being in the line of fire, "I feel like we've dealt with worse before?" The music still hadn't stopped, which she used to her advantage to throw a laser over her shoulder at the other deadly danger that had joined them in this little get-together.
"At least the music's good?" she didn't so much as comment as ask. It was beginning to feel a little like her catchphrase.
"Never say we've dealt with worse before," Wanda said, glaring as a screaming - no, sorry, was that singing? - robot with chainsaws for hands zipped its way towards her. It dodged a hex bolt before leaping into the air. She hesitated but instead of jumping out of the way, decided at the last moment to stay.
As it dropped towards her, singing and slashing, Wanda held up two hands to send two hex bolts that joined as one flashing up into the air. Unable to maneuver in mid-air, it meet the attack 'feet' first and exploded into dust and bits that rained around her.
"It's the flamethrowers," Alex called back, barely ducking and missing a face full of tire - he definitely felt the edges of his hair burn, tho. Well, fuck. "The singing isn't exactly endearing either," he continued, blasting the one trying to set him on fire, "but mostly it's the flamethrowers."
"None of this is, as you say, endearing." Now that she'd gotten her bearings, as much as she could, Wanda was able to determine that Betsy was not with her. Wanda huffed out a breath - hopefully, she was faring better than singing, dancing, flame wielding robots.
"They may not be endearing," Alison said, popping back up from where she'd been hiding as the singing ramped its way up to a blaring crescendo that she imagined had to have hurt the ears of everyone else (thank you power you are the best ever <3), "but they're also STUPID!" The last word was said at a yell as she absolutely unleashed hell, pouring a massively wide laser from double open palms.
The light faded and the music stopped at roughly the same time. The flamethrower robot was missing its head, exposed wiring sparking in the open air.
"Rule number one when fighting Dazzler," Alison said, pulling two fingers up to her mouth and blowing on them like they were the barrel of a smoking gun, "is silence is golden. Y'all okay?"
"Buuuuuuuuut if it was silent you wouldn't have anything to make cool lights with, so." Alex shot her a couple finger guns, grinning, before turning to Wanda. "You didn't happen to see where the others ended up, did you?"
Did other people make her feel old, Wanda thought, or was she already old? Maybe it was the finger guns. "No," she said, "the last time I saw someone, it was Betsy and we were fighting against holographic robots in a lovely desert. I lost sight of her right before I ended up here."
"Is this real fake reality walls, or fake fake reality walls?" Alison asked, as if her question made perfect sense, as she peered back and forth between Wanda's desert setting and their own original theater... robot... thing. "I'd touch it, but one of the guys who kept ending up in my classes at college kept going on about something called 'portal cuts' and... well... you get the idea."
"Maybe let's not try and find out before we find the others," Alex said, eyeing the robot. "This isn't where I want to die."
-
EMERGENCY MEETING. Betsy winds up in the Among Us sim with Sue and Artie.
The blonde slumped over, hands resting on her knees as she sucked in a breathe of air, and another before finally straightening, one hand reaching out to steady herself against the wall, drawing in first one breathe and then another before she finally pushed away. "You know, I normally love horror movies, but when we get home I'm renting the cheesiest movie and never touching another horror movie for like...a week." Finally recovered she took a shaky step forward and nodded at the door they'd just run through. "So, door A is a bust, let's see what's behind mystery door B.
Artie was still breathing hard but he took a step and rolled his shoulders, shaking out the muscle fatigue in his arms. He was still effectively powerless, illusions still not doing much against virtual reality. He held out a hand and projected, "Hold on. I'm going to call for help again."
This, illusions outside of a line of site, was exhausting. He couldn't hold it up but he knew the mansion's floor plan. Artie closed his eyes and projected, sending text up to the control room, the kitchen and the X-men's comms room. "Danger Room malfunctioning. We're trapped. Send help." They probably already knew but there was nothing wrong with sending up flares until you knew they were heard. He held it as long as he could and turned toward door B, stepping through it. He'd let the illusions vanish as they vanished and his attention shifted.
Betsy’s head was reeling. This shift had been less disorientating than the previous one, but the sudden lack of Wanda’s signature in her head still threw her for a loop. At least there wasn't any more sand, although calling her new surroundings an improvement might be pushing it. While the lighting was poor, she could make out a nondescript corridor, with grimy walls and a grated floor. The sound of trickling water seemed to be coming from all around her. Good thing their costumes included sensible footwear. She heard the door open behind her and quickly turned to face whatever new surprise she’d be facing now, her little glowing blade ready to fend off attack.
Artie held his hands up, no weapons in them and projected, "It's us! We're real, not simulations." He was a non-psi but years working with them had taught him how to give a mental handshake to new psis, the I'm here, this is me, this is the way my mind feels that wasn't quite reading thoughts. He pushed it at Betsy now in the hope she wouldn't get stabby.
There were sounds in the distance, not visible around the corner of the corridor they were in and he sighed, switching to the synthesiser. "Sue! I need you to make a wall around us, front and back, ten feet out, covering the full width of the hall. If this isn't a vacuum scenario, it's a kill shoot." Artie unholstered one of his guns and checked the clip. "On my marks, I need you to open holes in the barriers where I point so I can shoot out and close them again. Betsy, will that knife work on machinery, or do you need a weapon?" He held it out to her.
"See this...this is why I don't like video games." the blonde complained as she held out her hands, the air around them shimmering as she pulled her forcefield together, the edges of the forcefield brushing against the walls. "Kill shoot...when people start tossing around phrases like that then...it can only be a bad time."
The touch of a semi-familiar mind gave Betsy a stop. While she didn’t know either of the two new faces too well, living in the mansion for this long meant she had at least passing knowledge of what the other inhabitants felt like. “Artie…? Where did you… What?”
Then the question registered and she remembered the situation they were in. "The knife is only effective on people I’m afraid, and you two are the only ones I’ve felt around. I don’t have much experience with guns either, though,” Betsy replied. Still, she grabbed the weapon Artie handed out and aimed meticulously through the holes the other mutant indicated in the barrier.
Artie held up a hand. The shadows up ahead cleared to show a ... red guy. A life size, more realistic version of the creatures from Among Us. "One of them is the traitor, right?" Oh, the hell with it. Like he had time to figure out which robot was the bad robot.
Artie sent three quick shots into the faceplate and then two more, one into each knee. If the safeties were on, headshots would kill. If they were off, well, robots didn't need brains but probably did need knees. He didn't have that many bullets left. How many were actually needed for a kill?
Betsy’s shots were more haphazard than Artie's. She kept them to centre of mass and they did mostly hit their target. “Let me guess, another video game? Do either of you have any idea as to what is going on yet?"
Artie shrugged expansively. "No idea."
"I'm going to guess we've either been sucked into someone's nightmare, a demon realm or the Danger Room's been infected by a virus...or this is someone's idea of a prank." The blonde's eyes narrowed as she stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, glaring at the space where the control room should be. "You can let us out now Kane!"
Only silence greeted her as she turned to the other's and shrugged, "It was worth a shot. Any thoughts on how we actually get out of here?”
“I have nothing,” Betsy sighed. “I was in a desert with some angry cowboys earlier and am not even quite sure how we got out of that one. Or I got out, at least. I hope Wanda did as well.” She thought for a moment. “Before the previous scenario exploded, I saw it turn back to the Danger Room for a moment, so the virus seems most likely? If we are still in the Danger Room, can we reach the controls somehow? Or the emergency systems?"
-
With Alex blasting away on the inside and Garrison and a prybar on the outside, the doors to the Danger Room finally get forced open and everyone gets out.
Hamilbots dead, door still closed, that only meant one thing. Alex clapped his hands together, making sure everyone else was away.
"Scott's going to kill me. It's fine. I'll help with repairs." He was mostly talking to himself as he raised his hands, red energy dancing up and down his arms, preparing to blast the door down.
"Back away from the door, Alex. It's shielded. All you'll do is microwave everyone inside." The disembodied voice, slightly muffled, caught Alex off guard. There were three dull thuds on the door, obviously coming from the other side. "Can you hear that?"
Alex immediately jumped back, this time putting his hands up in surrender. "Yeah, loud and somewhat clear!"
"Alright, get closer to the door and listen for the... well, thumping." A series of hammering knocks hit the door, moving clearly down to the bottom of the door, at the junction of both sides.
"Got it." He stepped back to the door, listening as the heavy knocks went down the door.
"Ok, start directing energy at the point of sound. Start low and gradually bring it up. If you start seeing sparks, back the power off. The room is designed to absorb energy up to a certain point before reflecting it." On the other side, Kane started to work the long prybar he'd taken from the vehicle bay into the bottom edge of the door.
"Right."
Alex stepped back, carefully hitting the spot with a blast that probably wouldn't microwave a hot pocket, then notched the power up bit by bit. "Good," he muttered, "good, good..."
"Keep it coming." Kane muttered, leaning into the bar, His tremendous strength started the door to move slightly, but it stopped as it hit the emergency latch at the bottom of the door. The fusing of the manual hydraulics had stopped any normal opening of the doors, the only thing that stopped them from being manually brute forced was a latch which only had a half inch purchase. By slowly heating it up, Kane was beating he could get just enough flexibility in the metal to slip it.
He found a careful balance, watching the door and waiting for it to give. He lit up when he saw a little movement. "Almost there!"
His muscles strained as Kane matched his strength against the latch. The heated metal gave slowly, a milimetre at a time. With a tortured groan, the latch slipped just far enough off to release the doors. Garrison had to take a few steps to regain his balance as the doors popped open and his prybar nearly skewered him.
Alex immediately stepped back, dropping the attack, when the doors gave, eyes wide. "Yikes. Thanks, but also please don't stab yourself."
"You're welcome..." Kane muttered, tossing aside the bar with a clang. "Alright, everyone out. The Danger Room is officially closed."
