xp_logs | Marius and Madin, Jono and danger room interruptions

xp_madin posting in

Marius and Madin disrupt Jono's danger room session.

Jono's life had to keep getting weirder. The telepathy was one thing, but experiencing telepathy making it more difficult to hold back the nuclear bomb inside his chest...that was a more pressing issue.

And it wasn't exactly like this was a common mutation. Not like he could stroll into the community center and find someone else with this particular powerset. So he trained like he did most things. Alone.

He sat crisscrossed on the floor of the danger room, an inferno of red, fiery energy all around him as he tried to think through what Quentin had told him about mutations. How he had to accept it. Easier said than done when an inferno blazed around you.

At least it didn't hurt anymore. That was something to cling to.

Madin stared into the room through the window in the door and said, quietly, to the man next to them "Sorry bruh. I didn't know the room was busy. I just kinda want to throw stuff in and watch it burn."

Marius himself was observing the room's occupant with interest. Another semi-familiar face, he noted, but fortunately not one he'd had much previous association with. No bad memories to get in the way, which meant this was the perfect opportunity to create new ones.

"Why don't we ask?" the X-Man replied. He pressed the intercom button to the Danger Room.

"Oi, care for some company in there?"

Jono hadn’t brought his lightwriter into the danger room, it had felt like a bad idea at the time. But now, not bringing it felt like a worse idea. Of course this would happen to him.
He turned to look towards the door, unsure if his eyes were even visible through the fire that seeped out of his face. He couldn’t even grimace.

He steeled himself for failure and then thought very very hard in the direction of the door. ”I don’t think that’s safe for you.”

"Hey, telepathy! I didn't know you can do that," Madin said, choking down their inherent 'stay out of my brain' response. "Yeah, I can't come in but Marius reckons he can."

"Correct," Marius said with considerable aplomb for a man responding to what was by far his least favourite mode of communication, "I am a veritable sponge for offensive mutations such as your own. This was, in fact, the pretext for the training session upon which Madin and I were about to embark."

”It’s new.” Jono replied to Madin, just as uncomfortable with the mutation as they were. ”I’m not trying to be offensive. Just trying to get used to it.”

"Ah, no worries. That is, after all, the point of this place. Helped me adjust to my particular issues in times long past. Not so obvious these days, but . . ." Marius raised a hand to the window and peeled back his glove to display the tooth-ringed orifice in the centre of his palm long enough for the younger man to get a good look. It was impulsively done; as a rule Marius found it easier to hold a conversation when the opposite party wasn't wondering whether a handshake was going to draw blood. In this case, however, he felt compelled to make an exception. Jono and Madin were visible mutants, and Marius hadn't always been able to pass with only a set of gloves.

Madin grunted at the sight of his hands. Huh. Bet he chomped his way through a lot of gloves. "He's - I think. It was. um. a lot of words. But he's right and was going to help me work on some powers stuff without, like, just melting everything." They grinned. "Which, there's nothing wrong with setting everything on fire. I did a lot of that when I was younger, but like, it's not always the best option, you know?"

”As long as you’re sure you won’t die. Come in.” Jono felt like he was probably going to regret that decision. But the older man seemed awfully sure about this.

"Quite sure," Marius said confidently, already keying in one of the most basic training pre-sets. As he opened the door he leaned over to Madin and muttered, out of the corner of his mouth, "Just remember: in case of emergencies, I may be used as a human shield."

As the other two mutants strode in to join Jono the Danger Room shimmered to generate a variety of targets. There were a few straw targets for the satisfaction of, as Madin had remarked, watching stuff burn, but there was a wide variety from which to choose. Marius particularly appreciated the carnival-style duck shoot for precision.

"Advanced to target practice yet, or just generally getting the feel of things?" asked the X-Man as he stretched one arm across his body, then the other. In anticipation of his session with Madin, Marius was wearing only a form-fitting tank top that both left his arms bare and covered most of Akkaba's brand. No need to waste perfectly good body armour.

"The feel of things. Haven't been too keen to even let it out since I've been here. Showering has been awful." Jono replied. His telepathic speech was still clunky, but he'd have to brag to Quentin about having actually successfully done it later.

Marius nodded. "Acclimation is a significant first step of any manifestation. Happily, you find yourself in an environment where you may do so both safely and discreetly. Madin, if you would care to demonstrate for our friend -- one to my centre mass, and one to a target?"

"He made me do this to him last time, to convince me I couldn't hurt him," Madin said. "I wasn't sure about it but I did it anyway and he was fine." Energy crackled around their firsts and lit up their arms. Madin shaped it, drawing on half remembered images of Sailor Moon's transformations, bringing the plasma into a wide arc before shooting it at one of the targets. Were they showing off? Shut up. The target was obliterated, ash falling to the ground. They brought up a second one, equally showy and punched it at Marius' mid section.

The blast scorched a hole in the sacrificial shirt, but Marius took it without even a flinch. Aiming a toothy grin at Jono, he tugged the glove from his dominant hand and tucked it into his waistband. No need to waste a perfectly good glove, either.

"I'm a bit of a thief," the X-Man explained as the same streaks of light that had run across Madin's arm began to flow across his own. He squared his feet like a pitcher and let the plasma gather in the palm of his hand -- not the blade-like projections Madin formed, but a ball of light.

"Mutant powers used directly upon my person are absorbed, neutralized, and redirected. I return what I take, like so."

The throw flowed almost like a single motion: a small step back, a longer stride forward, and a pivot from the hips that leant power to the arm and shoulder. An athlete's throw -- specifically a baseball pitch, which, although less practical in combat than fielding, made for quite an effective demonstration.

Among the targets were a row of humanoid mannequins. In an instant one of them had ceased to have a head.

Jono didn’t really like the idea of attacking anything humanoid. But if the guy with the mouth hands was as invulnerable as he seemed maybe Jono could try.

He didn’t even try to fling a fireball towards the man but rather towards the targets. The one he hit ceased to exist within seconds, having been completely obliterated by Jono’s powers. He felt a little sick.

As absolutely none of it was directed towards Madin, they were free to indulge their inner pyro. "Nice." They cleared their throat and said "Excuse me, Danger Room, can you please make a new set of smaller targets on that wall and spread them out more?" They looked at Jono awkwardly. "They said it uses something something natural language commands or something when I got my induction."

The targets appeared. "Can you do just one?"

”No idea.” Jono thought. ”I didn’t even know I could do that.”

Jono stared at the targets and felt nothing but a growing unease. This didn’t feel safe. Or useful. He couldn’t muster the control to make it happen.

Marius cocked his head. "You're still getting a feel for things, correct? In that case don't concern yourself overmuch with precision. When you're starting out it's more about control -- growing accustomed to the on/off switch, so to speak, so it triggers only when you wish. From there you move to intensity and precision. If you're to use it it's a comfort to know you may do so in the manner you intend."

"I don't even know how I got it to fire just now. I need to learn more but I fucking hate everything about this." Jono thought, hoping his psychic voice sounded as tired as he felt.

"Then there's no time like the present to get it over with, eh? Sort it out and be done with it."

Jono contemplated thinking something rude back to the man but decided against it. He chose instead, to try to hit the new targets that Madin had set up. Once again the one Jono hit seemed to become completely obliterated, leaving a fire in its stead.

Two things were true, simultaneously, for Madin: they were immune to the direct impact of their own powers. They were not immune to the secondary impact - things melting, burning or otherwise catching fire. Over the years, they'd developed both a healthy respect and caution for how inherently flammable the world was but had also never lost their inherent, childlike delight in seeing things explode. It meant that they didn't flinch when the target exploded but instead, having already stepped carefully behind Jono before he let loose, gave a cheer. "Dude. That was awesome." They paused, seeing his discomfort. "Look, the first step to controlling powers is to know how they feel when you're using them, what they can do. Once you can turn it on, it's easier to turn it off. I uh. I did some of this shit when I was um. You know, before I came here."

What did he know about Madin's past? Well, fuck it, they weren't going to say the B word. The Brotherhood would have loved him, though. Angry and destructive and Madin could just see the way they'd have talked him into it, the destruction and damage he'd have left behind once they got past his fear or in spite of it, if they'd been able to do it coercively.

"Perfectly fine and natural to explore one's limits," agreed Marius, as if Jono's current limit hadn't just vaporised a man-sized effigy. He turned to the younger man, beaming. "Much preferable to discovering them accidentally, I think you'll agree. How do you feel? Headaches, weakness, greying vision?"

"None of the symptoms from the first time. And no grievously injured girlfriends. Already doing better." Jono snarked. He hated being watched. The smiles and praise just made him feel like an animal or a small child doing tricks.

The X-Man's smile stayed, but when he met Jono's eyes the look in them was startlingly direct.

"You know," said Marius, his tone still pleasant, "you'd not think it to look at me, but there was a time my mutation was running so wild I regularly sent my mates to hospital. Myself, as well. So you may say that as a joke, but I shall take it as the positive step it represents. Anything that gets you a step closer to control, yeah?"

"I'm pretty sure I'm actually dead. I've been managing just fine." Jono snarked back, rolling his eyes at the other man's positivity.

How did you respond to that? "I don't know much about that but I know what dangerous powers are like. Sure, stabbing shit and setting things on fire is fun but -" Madin stopped talking for a moment before continuing. "But you can also do a lot of damage. At least if you have control, you're in charge of it. It's not just happening to you. You don't want that."

Marius flicked his eyes to Jono. The younger man did not have the body language of one interested in a pep talk, which, all appearances to the contrary, was not a state of mind with which Marius was wholly unfamiliar. Sometimes even Marius could read a room.

"I believe our point is made," said the older man. He cracked his knuckles and shot Jono another smile. "Right. No more words of encouragement, only controlled destruction. What do you say?"

"I'm going back to my room." Jono thought, starting the process of wrapping himself in bandages so that he could safely leave. "I've already been here longer than I planned.""

Madin nodded. "Sorry for making it weird, bruh. We'll uh, do our training session now, I guess?"