xp_logs | Ashley and Rogue, first powers seminar

Ashley meets Rogue and has a brief powers assessment, more like counseling, gets to meet the Danger Room and gets a little safe destruction, as a treat.

The attack on the city meant Ashley's appointment had gotten postponed, but since she hadn't been looking forward to it in the first place, she wasn't all that fussed. There wasn't a way to avoid it the second time, much to her annoyance, but she went down to the "Danger Room" in workout clothes - her yoga leggings, a crop tank-top and a unzipped hoodie. "I'm Ashley!" She said brightly. "You're Ms Rogue, right? Is that a superhero name, because I have just been introduced to Matt who is Daredevil a few days ago and I am kind of loving the superhero name thing."

"I'm one of those people who took a name a long time ago, and kinda stuck to it," Rogue responded, reaching up to put her hair in a ponytail. She was too damn old to sit around and recover so tapping into Logan's healing factor help speed things up for her. After a good night's sleep, she was back to her usual self although she was wearing her trademark gloves. With having a slight concussion, she didn't want to risk any types of power issues and focusing on her powers took a lot out of her. This made things easier and safer really.

"Really nice to meet you, Ashley. Did anyone explain to you what we're going to be doing today?"

"A little bit, yeah, you know?" Ashley said, with a nod. "They told me you were strong sometimes, and had power problems when you were younger, and you could help me figure out how to keep from..." She gave a big huff, and shook her head. "How to keep from smushing things. I broke my hairbrush this morning, I'm already so tired of this."

"Yeah...takes some time," Rogue said with a knowing smile. "I remember my first few days. I don't think there was anything left standing around ... thank goodness for Logan though. Nothing kills that man, and he helped me so Ima help you, alright?" She walked over to the edge of the room to the console and punched in a few things. "This was one of my first training exercises, and it's still my favourite." A few moments later, the DR was no longer -- it was Times Square but oddly emptied of people. This wasn't a fighting simulation per se, it was a powers one so they didn't need people. "You can do whatever you want here and nothing will actually be destroyed. Let's test out grip strength since you mentioned your brush and oh -- I forgot the most important part."

She took her phone out and set up the bluetooth. "Gotta have tunes!" The sound of Ice Cream started to blast and she grinned. "Nothing like cheap pop music to get you really in a rampaging mood. Now come on girl, unleash that inner Godzilla and let's see what you can do."

"Holy shit." Ashley squeaked out. "Alison said this was a virtual reality room, this is a holodeck!" She turned around in a circle looking at everything around her. "This is a dream, this is amazing, this is... " She bounced around to the music and then looked at Rogue. "I can do anything and it doesn't count?"

At the answering nod, she ran off, and the Danger Room shaped itself around her until she was standing in front of the Lyric theater, with a marquee advertising "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" and she kicked the concrete safety block covered in an advertisement for the play until it broke off, and then she picked it up and threw it through the front doors. "This is a stupid play and it's badly written and the only good part is Hermione is black and that doesn't make up for the bad writing!"

Then she sat down, panting. 'Whoa."

Rogue laughed. "Doesn't that feel good, kiddo? Sometimes, I jus' like to come in here and scream.... but again, we're here to learn how the limits to your powers, if there are any." Leaning over to a taxi, Rogue picked it up with very little effort and threw it down the street, watching it land far away in a crumpled heap and a loud bang. "That isn't even a workout for me." She walked to a traffic light, and squeezed, letting go to show the fingerprints firmly etched in. "I do that without thinking.....so I had to actually teach myself what my limit was so that I wouldn't crush things like a hairbrush." She tilted her head and brushed a strand of hair off her face. "Does that make sense?"

"That's what I keep doing, if I don't think really hard about how to be super careful, crush, and I'm out a hair dryer." Ashley swept her hair off her face and pulled it back into a lumpy set of space buns with the hairties she'd had around her wrist. "I don't know how any of this works, I was just tough before.. She'd just thrown an entire concrete block wider than herself, and she still looked at the destruction of the theater with disbelief, even despite the destroyed car that Rogue had thrown even further. "So how do we, do I just pick things up until I can't, and that's how we know how strong I am?"

"Yup, that works. And while you're doing that, squeeze. And if we never find out the limits, then so be it too. Then we focus on just being aware of what we can do so we can really figure out any boundary. I think the thing with the hairbrush is you're just not thinking about it. And unfortunately, sweet pea, ya gotta. Ya gotta until it's just unconscious memory. Training your body, training your muscles is how you're gonna cope with this now."

"Ew." Ashley whined a little, and hung her head and puffed out her cheeks and looked up through her bangs, and did not see much reaction to her brief moment of theatrics, so gave up. "So it's like dance, do it over and over until I can do it in my sleep, but instead of a ball change or jazz hands it's not crushing every single thing I own, forever.. Thanks, I hate it." Despite the complaint, she looked around the street, even turning around in a little circle until she found a manhole and pried up the cover and set it down easily on it's edge, giving it a two-handed spin. "I don't hate that." She watched the manhole cover spin like a coin until it clattered noisily onto the asphalt.

"It's got its pros," Rogue agreed, watching with amusement. She leaned against a car, and watched Ashley explore. "You know, I wasn't born like this either. None of this was actually my powers .... I ... inherited them." She wasn't going to get into too many details right now, it wasn't fair to put that on someone else, even if she'd processed it long ago. "So I was in the same boat as you, only like several years after my mutation kicked in. It took me a while, and I know it sucks. It really really does. But once you got it, you got it girl. It's like a switch goes off and you just know and remember and that's half the battle." Pushing backwards with a bit of effort, the car creaked and when Rogue moved away, there was a dent. "See? I made that happen because I chose it. I was fine until then. That's what you gotta learn."

"But I want to whine about it." Ashley whined. She walked close to look at the dent, and pushed at it with a finger, easily popping a hole in the metal. "See, how am I supposed to do anything when I put holes in things. What happens if I break something in my sleep? How do you even sleep when you do this, I broke my dorm bed, and I wasn't even awake for that." She hauled herself onto the roof of the car, and bounced a little, creating a large dent in the metal. "So this is just, how this is, I have to do mutant strength yoga forever? It's neat to be able to pick up a manhole cover but this feels like I'll have to be careful of everything I do, for the rest of my life."

Rogue shook her head. "Not for the rest of your life. Just right now. The other thing too ..... I mean, we can order you some unbreakable things? Like a brush...a bed, stuff like that for the meantime while you're learning." She smiled. "Y'all got such lovely hair, we don't wanna see that get all tangled up and matted. Would that help? And then you and I, we can keep this up at least once a week, maybe more if you need it, and we just keep on practicing and testing things out until you got it, kiddo." Wait .... Rogue suddenly had an idea. "Or, and I will not be offended if you say no, but I got a box up in the attic of stuff I used to use when I was also just learning. I don't know what exactly is in there but I'm hella cheap and I would never throw out something useful. But if you want new stuff, that's cool too!"

It was a fake car, so Ashley busied herself poking holes in it with her finger, picking out a very rough approximation of the melody of Miley Cyrus' Flowers. "I would love anything you have because right now the only things I have are a keyboard and mouse and some stylus pens." She hummed the tune and poked a few more holes in the hood of the car. "My mom sent me some kitchen stuff, but I kind of broke one of the big spoons already and it's so so so frustrating. I just want to live my life again!"

"Aw sugar....then yes, let's dig around in that ol' attic, and see what we can find. Just promise you won't judge my past fashion choices. I was unapologetically goth for a bit."

"So was my dad!" Ashley chirped. "Personal Jesus is a really weird thing to hear growing up when your dad's driving you to shul."

Rogue laughed. "I can only imagine! Let's say we get out of here then and go dig around the attic? Just don't ask me to try on any of those clothes, that's where I draw the line."