xp_logs | (no subject)

x-dazzler.livejournal.com posting in

Danger Room - 10 am

Scott went to the control room, and programmed the simulation. His mind went back to the last time he was here, when Betsy was at his side, but he shoved it away, locked it up tight. He couldn't afford to dwell on that.

But the programming was similar this time. Not a lot of combat, just an empty room, some holograms, and a few more of the blocks/equipment to hide behind. If needed.

"We should be good to go," he said as he gestured to the door, for Ali to precede him.

Peering about the room with obvious curiosity, Alison entered, wondering what exactly he'd had in mind. The bare layout of the room told her little and there was no simulation running from what she could tell. She paused in mid-step, and nearly turned to ask Scott what the session was about, but changed her mind and continued until she was in the middle of the room. Taking in as many details while she could of the layout, and keeping the sound of his steps and his location in consideration at the same time.

"I thought we would practice blocking, using solid light barriers. I could have tried to get Sarah down here, to have her throw things at you, but I thought it'd be more...interesting, this way." Scott walked to the center of the room, the door sliding shut behind him.

"I will shoot at you, low level beams, nothing that should give you more than a few bruises if you're not careful. None, if you can block." He didn't smile, but she had spent enough time with him by now to know when he was amused.

He turned to her then, eyes behind the visor obviously focusing on her, waiting her response. "Ready?"

Shoot at me. Oh. Ok. Turning over the notion in her head Alison, nodded - and quickly focused her attention on him knowing he'd spot it right away if she didn't. Keeping a mental note of the closest object she could use as cover if needed, a crate, she quickly spotted a secondary bolthole in the opposite direction. He'd be angling his shots to block her from cover as well, she had no doubt.

Solid light, solid light. Oh boy. Ignoring the tendril of worries, she concentrated, consciously working at absorbing the sound of the music already playing in the background. It wasn't loud, but Scott had started working her on maximizing her power storage abilities a few weeks ago, so she'd expected that already.

He gave her a few seconds after her nod, let her juice up her powers to full, and then started in. The first shot was a simple ricochet, one bounce, to come up on her left side. She could easily duck behind the low wall to avoid it.

He moved to the side then, eyes keeping her in sight while his backbrain began computing the angles to get the best shots, and keep himself "safe" from her.

A wavering wall of light appeared about ten feet away from her nearly instantly. Speed of light and speed of thought combined made for a pretty fast reaction time, they'd both discovered early on in her training. The optic blast sheared through it easily however, neatly clipping Alison's leg as she tried to duck out of the way in time. She didn't even wince at it hit however, merely frowned at herself and took a deep breath, ready for the next try.

A moment's pause to let her recover, think about what she did wrong, and then Scott was at it again, this time a longer blast, ricocheting five times before coming at her from the angle from which he was facing her, followed by a shorter shot, this time with no ricochet, again directly at her. The first headed for her legs, while the second aimed for her right shoulder.

Calculating the angles Alison reacted by pure instinct this time. Flinging a hand up in reflex, a solid mass of light appeared before her, vaguely ovoid in shape. To her surprise the optic blast actually impacted solidly against it... and stopped. Light flickering out as she realized she had no clue as to how she'd gotten it to solidify in the first place, Alison stared at her hand, barely noticing the second blast heading her way in time.

With a faint "eep!" of dismay she let chose the quickest way to dodge it, simply letting her knees fold to take her upper body out of the way. Not the most graceful of dodging techniques perhaps, but effective enough she figured, remembering the sting of the first blow.

Scott smiled then, a full one that softened his face into boyishness. "Good! On both counts." He then aimed his next shot for a few ricochets, coming at her from directly above. He had stayed stationary for too long, and began moving around Alison, heading toward another low wall. One he could crouch behind.

Smothering a smile at the praise and distracted by trying to figuring out how she'd managed the solid light shield, the first of her attempts to be so effective so far, Alison still managed to slow the incoming blast a bit before it broke through her latest attempt. This gave her enough time to step aside to let it hit the floor however, and she scanned the room intently when she realized Scott had gotten to cover.

She elected to stay where she was however - the aim of the exercise was for her to stop the blasts. Not knowing where they might come from would only make it a bigger challenge, which was fine. I think I've been thinking too much about the how I to make it solid. It seemed to work fine when I just reacted... maybe I should give that a shot, instead of thinking it to death.

One shot from this location was all he could get with the surprise factor, so Scott wanted to make it count. He knew where she was, and could tell she hadn't moved from the sounds and the small reflection from the shiny walls.

Three blasts this time, then. His first shot went for the crate that was close enough to where she was standing that she'd notice it, but she wouldn't be hit from the shrapnel as it splintered. That was just to get her attention. The next bounced a few times, then aimed for her back, assuming she had turned toward the crate's explosion. The last he stood up for, jumping over the wall and bouncing the shot off the floor in front of her, but it went upwards, not actually hitting her at all, just a distraction. Then he moved toward her, menacingly.

Using sound as her cue this time, Alison tracked the first blast's angle, eyes flicking towards the crate even as it hit. Wait, there's another. Resisting the instinct to move she turned in place and tried to track it, knowing that the aim of the exercise was not to dodge, but rather block. Again, light flickered into place and held. Alison firmly kept her attention on the training, refusing to give in to elation right away however, and although the third blast nearly took her by surprise, she managed to track it's target at the last millisecond, and didn't move as it lanced upwards harmlessly.

Scott stalking towards her did catch her full attention, and she shifted her weight slightly even as she started a slow countercircle, moving just enough to keep a good distance. Yep. Giving him plenty of room to shoot again, but that's the aim of this particular practice, isn't it?

Hands loose at her side she kept her breath even and steady, and her mind clear. Instinct seemed to be working, so she was going with that.

Scott moved toward her, hand at the side of his visor. He shot once, directly at her, his face deep in concentration. Then his second blast ... stayed on. He pressed the attack, forcing her to keep up the shield from the blast or dodge out of its way. how do you like this one, Ali he thought with a grin that didn't show on his face...yet.

The first blast was blocked, competently at least if not with great ease, and Alison allowed herself the tiniest of smiles. Three times in a row. That's the best yet! She got a shield up in time for the second blast as well, having expected it. She frowned in concentration as she realized it wasn't stopping however, and her shield wavered for a moment - and then collapsed entirely as the optic blast washed over her suddenly.

Scott stopped as the blast got through the shield, though it just wrapped around her and startled him for a moment. "That's new. Something amusing, Ali?"

Trying to regain control of the giggles, Alison managed to nod, a move rendered well enough even though she kept up the light shield. "M'sorry!" she danced in place briefly, trying to stop laughing. "That tickled!"

"Oh. Well then..." and Scott one-bounced a beam right at her face, followed by two-bounce to her side. "I assume Sam knows about your ticklishness?" Another shot followed up on that as he dodged toward her, and finished with a kick aimed at her midsection.

Nonplussed as her world went red, Alison blinked but still kept up the shield, realizing that anchoring it to herself way was actually far easier than what she'd been trying before. "Eep! Tickles!" she gasped out at the shot that hit her side, and danced out of the way of the final one, giggling involuntarily once as she dodged the kick and used an arm block to divert it further off course.

"Sam and everyone else know by now, I'd say," she grinned beneath the light shield, trying to track how much of a drain it was on her resources. So far the ambient music in the background seemed to be enough to keep it going, though she realised she'd been adapting the intensity of it to the low force of the blasts Scott had been using.

"Ever had this happen before?" He paused in their session, reaching his hand out slowly toward Ali's arm. She could tell by his stance that he had dropped out of training mode and had gone into explanation mode, or maybe it was figuring-out-what-was-going-on mode.

"Nope." She stepped out of her stance as well, trying not to think too hard on how she was actually keeping the shield going, and offered her arm up for inspection. "First time. I stopped trying to figure it out and just did it. And then it just seemed simpler to do it this way when you kept the blast going on earlier. Anchoring it to myself rather than thin air, I mean."

Scott touched her arm, stroking along it, testing the light shield. There was nothing sexual in it, though someone outside might see them and wonder. "Reminds me... yes... Sam's field when he's flying. Have you been flying with him lately?"

Alison stared at him, utterly nonplussed. The shield blinked out as she worked out what he was getting at, causing her to land a few centimetres lower. Keeping balance through the transition, she landed steadily, and Scott could now see her features once more, eyes wide and lips parted in surprise. "Yes. Uh, every chance we get, really."

He nodded. "Makes sense. Whether you realized it or not, you must have seen what he does and subconsciously used that. It's good, and better still, it works. But doing it without thought will only go so far. Think you can bring it back?"

Still turning over that particular notion in her mind, Alison nodded at his request, trying to recapture the sensation of the light field. The light sprang into life near instantly, though it took barely any effort on Scott's part to push a hand through it to touch her arm. "S'not quite right," she murmured, more to herself than anything else.

After a few seconds, she nodded. "That's better I think. Although I don't know that I could block anything too strong? It feels... not dense enough for that, yet."

"It'll get there. It just hadn't really occurred to me that we should try it as a personal shield first. It all really depends on the mutation, and I think we both were thinking externally in your case. Farther away, rather than close." After probing the shield with his fingers for a bit more, he looked down at her. "Want to keep going?"

"Yes!" Looking down quickly, Alison chuckled. "I grow a few centimetres thanks to this light shield thing, and I'm still a smurf." Sobering up she waited for Scott to move further off, and concentrated on tightening the particles of light surrounding her as best she could.

"Let's keep on, Smurfette," Scott flashed her a brief grin, then moved off a bit, and once more began bouncing the beams off of the walls, ceiling, and floor, with the occasional one straight at her, as they continued.

"You know, you can move," Scott said, at one point. "Or I could just send something crashing down on you..." He got a nasty-looking grin, and called out. "Sound, off!" in a loud voice, and the background music cut out.

Letting the light shield fade out immediately Alison dove for cover, using the first wall only as a starting point as she immediately slunk towards a secondary spot. Oh boy. He's got that look. And he's cut off the music. Making me work on being able to turn it on and off so I can conserve power.

Steadying her breathing she narrowed her eyes, unable to repress a smile of her own. Listening carefully she moved again, sneaking a look upwards so as to not be surprised and making no sound as she shifted her weight carefully. She was relying on the fact that Scott's optic blasts made noise when activated both to warn and possibly give her an extra power boost, but wasn't counting out that he might just go for a physical attack either.

Scott moved around the room as quietly as he could, trying not only to not reveal his presence, but so that Alison couldn't absorb any sound he made to use against him. Or to defend herself, which was the point of this whole exercise, he reminded himself.

Then, just to add insult to injury, after firing off a few more blasts in her direction, he called out, "Lights, off!" and the room went dark. Now neither one knew where the other was.

Blinking in the dark, Alison hesitated for a moment, before continuing exactly as she'd been doing when the lights were on. Good thing I'm not afraid of the dark. Setting down her foot she turned the corner of the wall, moving by memory towards the large crate she'd been planning to use as cover, keeping her feet inches from the ground as she moved in case she had to change directions abruptly. Pausing to listen with each silent step, knowing the last thing Scott would allow was noise, but taking the precaution anyway.

She kept her eyes wide open, though she didn't worry about adjusting to the dark - you need some form of ambient luminosity for that which wasn't the case right now as they were in an enclosed room.

Scott waited an appropriate amount of time, moving to get his back to the wall of the rounded room, and waiting just a bit more. Letting her think, letting her stretch her senses, letting her listen.

Then, he adjusted his visor to the widest range setting, and swept it across the room, from one end to the other. He didn't adjust much for height; she's smaller than he is, so it was angled down just a bit.

Then, he called out, "Lights, on!" and walked toward the center of the room.

No music. Only got what I have left to work with. Taking out opponent is being defensive. As soon as he called out for the lights, Alison turned around the corner of the crate, letting her knees fold as she went down in a low crouch. Using the sound of his voice as a target, and blessing the fact that she didn't need to adapt to light shifts, she pinpointed his location as quickly as she could manage, and raised both hands towards him, in a gun like pose.

And neatly sheared off the visors on either side of his head. She then immediately threw herself back behind cover, flat on her stomach on the ground with her still new light shield up and as dense as she could manage it.

Scott knew it was coming. He'd taunted her into it, it just wasn't quite prepared for what it would be. The lasers were expected, of course, but the precision and location weren't. The blast came before he could stop it, his eyes automatically tracking her and exploding her cover completely before he shut his eyes, cutting it off, and blinding himself.

Scott nodded, pleased. "Well done. Now, can you pick up the front of my visor so I can hold it to my face?" He smiled. She'd done well. He was slightly upset at himself that he hadn't thought to try a Danger Room scenario with her earlier.

"Ok!" The clear sound of wood hitting the floor reached his ears as Alison got to her feet, pushing off some of the debris from the crate while getting to her feet. Letting the shield go, she blinked in dismay and immediately sneezed. Wood dust still swirled about lazily, and she sneezed delicately a few more times as she stepped clear of the remains of the crate.

Rubbing the tip of her nose she walked towards Scott, allowing herself a gleeful smile as she neared him, completely ignoring the splinters she'd collected during the crate's obliteration. She unconsciously made sure to tap the floor lightly with each step so that the temporarily blinded man could track her movements - a habit she'd acquired while spending time with Betsy. Picking up the visor, she handed it to him.

"Careful. The edges are still a bit hot."

"Thanks," He took the visor carefully, his eyes squeezed shut. Ali was one of the few to see him without it. He looked younger, more boyish, if that was possible. Then the visor was over his eyes, one hand holding it in place as he carefully opened them, tilting his head upward, just in case.

When nothing leaked out, he turned to look at her, smile not fading. "Should have done this earlier. Not every session, but the new environment brings out the best." He tapped his visor. "And maybe the worst. End simulation," he called out, and the bits that were projected up and out from the floors and ceilings began to slide back from where they came.

"And now, another visor for me, and rest for you." He reached out with his free hand and patted her on the shoulder, smile finally mostly receding. Mostly. "Let's go."

Realization finally setting in now that the training session was over, Alison bounced lightly as they walked, not even trying to wipe the grin off her face. Her happy expression was only marred once, by a final, tiny little sneeze, making her chuckle cheerfully as they exited the Danger Room.