xp_logs | Nathan and Alison (and Scott and Ororo), Tuesday morning in the Danger Room

Scott and Ororo fire up yet another no-win scenario to throw at Nathan. This one's a doozy.

Scott made a thoughtful noise, settling down in the chair at the console and pulling up the schematics for today's scenario. "I combined the next two on the schedule to create this beast," he said wryly over his shoulder. "From a strictly objective standpoint, I'd say he can't get any further than forty percent into it, but then, I didn't expect him to nearly beat the scenario on Saturday, either."

An eyebrow raised slowly at that, an elegant expression Ororo had always sworn was entirely natural and not practiced in front of a mirror at all. "Alison is still insisting it was him finding a pattern that the program settled on, through pure luck." Her lips quirked at that - she was far more comfortable with the concept of 'force of nature' on that level, and inclined to leaving it at that, herself. "Of course, the point of all this is to see when he realizes it isn't about beating the scenario, isn't it?" This was one of the rare moments they could talk freely even when Nathan was near - they had noticed how he tended to utterly focus of late before being sent in, actively blocking all else and not picking up thoughts unless a great deal of intent was behind them.

"Yes, but we don't want to risk him being that lucky again," Scott pointed out with a rueful smile. "If he beats one of these scenarios, so much for the grand plan." He shook his head, a bit wonderingly. "I have to say, though, it's giving us a good look at just how versatile telekinesis can be." Part of him kept thinking about just how much Jean could have learned from Nathan, a bit regretfully, but he didn't say that aloud.

The look was noted, Ororo having had the same thought herself - there were so many things they still didn't talk about, though of late... of late they had. Small things. Jokes that they had stopped making, slowly starting to resurface again. References to things about Jean no longer being met with long, awkward silences. She smiled at that thought, glancing back in the Danger Room serenely. "I think perhaps this plan needs to bear fruit soon. If only so he doesn't pick up on what we intend from us. Though he has gotten better at not doing so anymore..." She trailed off, lips quirking. "I would think part of it is him being stubborn and refusing to pick it up from us, as well, don't you think?"

"This is all about blind spots, in the end. But his basic stubbornness is impressive, yes." Scott snorted softly. "It's just all about directing it properly."

---

Alison walks Nathan to the Danger Room doors. Nathan is not precisely in the proper headspace this morning - or is he?

He was still stiff. Still sore, if not quite as badly as he had been last week. The session on Saturday had gone much better, after all. Nathan pulled the zipper on his uniform upwards, fully aware of Alison standing in the doorway behind him, even though she hadn't said anything yet and had moved soundlessly.

Watching him. Assessing him. He reinforced his shields and gave the zipper a sharp jerk upwards.

"Basic run through, same as the last. Target is visible when you enter the room." Even though he knew, they had still been going through the basic briefing before each run. Sometimes some of the variations were mentioned to him. Sometimes not. She took a slow breath, letting it out while counting out the seconds. Today, she hoped, would be a good day. It felt like it might be a good day.

"Right." The answer came out neutral enough, though he couldn't quite keep the chilly edge out of his voice. He finally turned around, meeting Alison's eyes. "Nothing else I should know?" Probably a lot he should know, but he doubted she would tell him. She and Scott and Ororo did like their little surprises.

She shook her head at him - the same thing each time, an almost established routine by now. The chilliness Alison didn't begrudge him in the least and it showed in the small smile of encouragement she offered, before taking a step back.

Nathan shook his head and stepped past her. He had actually slept a little bit last night, an hour or so. Slept, and dreamed about the blank whiteness that had taken over the mindscape at the last.

He knew what it was. He just didn't understand why it had come to him when it did.

"Scott and Ororo are in the control booth?" he asked as she followed him down the hall to the Danger Room doors.

"Yes." She could monitor from up there, or from the room itself, in the safe zone and had alternated between both since they'd started this. This time, however, she decided he needed to room to himself. Nothing to distract him - nothing to keep him from focusing on what was at hand. "I'll be joining them up there once you're ready." Alison gave him a sideways glance, absently counting off the steps she was taking, in the back of her mind.

"I'm ready," Nathan said as they reached the doors. For the first time since this series of scenarios had started, though... he wasn't sure that he meant it.

---

Alison joins her fellow team leaders in the control booth to watch the scenario. The plan might be progressing well, but her nerves are getting perhaps just a little frayed. This is, after all, as much of a test for her as for Nathan.

Opening the door Alison stepped in, the change in her demeanor visible to both within. Her motions were sharper and swifter, the slow calm she had been radiating earlier entirely gone. She crossed the booth to take up her usual position, leaning on the far side, able to peer into the Danger Room at will while still keeping the monitors in sight. "He should be getting it soon." It was, despite what Nathan thought, not just about him - Alison's ability to judge matters was as well, at least as far as she was concerned. Very much so.

Scott gave her a sideways assessing look, smiling just a little. "Hope so," he murmured. "I threw a few extra surprises into the scenario while we were waiting. Just in case." He peered through the window, the faint smile turning into a slight frown. "He doesn't look quite as sure of himself." Nathan was walking quite slowly into the Danger Room, and the tension in his posture wasn't of the usual coiled-spring sort.

Ororo didn't speak a word, merely leaning forward with a small frown, watching intently. "You always throw in a few extra surprises," was the remark, adding a wry lilt to the words. She then slid a look towards Alison, the wryness just as evident on her features, though she kept whatever other thought she had on the topic to herself.

The look was wasted on Alison though, who was very much staring at Nathan instead, frowning just a bit. "He's getting close. But - the Columbia stuff either helped, or maybe slowed things down. Still not sure which yet. We haven't spoken about it more, but he did go see Amanda..." Alison nodded to herself, as though deciding on the matter in the next moment. "He's close."

"Well, here's hoping," Scott said, punching up the scenario. The lights in the Danger Room dimmed, the target drone appearing, glowing red. "Because I'm beginning to feel like a real sadist here. And I prefer to feel only somewhat like a sadist, if you know what I mean..." He glanced sideways at Alison, knowing what had to be going through her mind just now. Sometimes you didn't need telepathy.

If she'd been wrong about this, had misjudged so badly they were doing harm to Nathan, Alison was quitting as a team leader and that was that. But she didn't think she was wrong. She'd damn well better not be. "He'll get it," she repeated, ignoring the look Ororo gave Scott and received in return. "He will." And she wasn't saying that just to convince herself, either. Not one bit.

---

Down in the Danger Room, Nathan struggles through the scenario, taking hits left and right. But that one hit too many finally hammers the point home.

There was fire coming at him from eight--no, nine different directions. No, ten. Damn it. Nathan shielded against the low-level energy blasts, catching the rubber bullets, and tried to keep his eyes on the floor in front of him at the same time.

It was, Alison decided, one of the hardest sessions to watch. This one had been designed with every other session he'd already been through in mind. Specifically created to limit options he chose by instinct, forestall the plans he relied on by experience. And the damn random algorithm had been pushed further still, weeding out any possibility of a pattern to emerge. Somehow. The rest was entirely up to him.

The environment started to shift around him, modular segments moving, holographic projections muddying the waters even further, messing with the lines of force. Nathan gritted his teeth and threw his TK sonar field out farther, yet... half-heartedly, almost. There was a certain amount of futility to this; he recognized different pieces from different scenarios, all together for the first time, yet there was still no pattern. And he could pour everything he had into this, he suspected, and still not complete the program.

Futile.

The hardest part of watching, Alison had discovered during the first session, was having to keep her mind still. The need to cheer him on, to mentally urge him to get the point was always hovering at the edges - it had been a practice in self control and everything she'd learned while meditating, to simply watch and absorb, instead of think.

It was enough to drive anyone insane, and invariably left her exhausted afterwards.

Nathan flung himself under a rapidly descending wall, rolling back to his feet and batting away most of the hail of rubber bullets he ran right into on the other side. A good number of them made contact, and he spared a moment to be glad that the Room's guns were programmed to aim for the center of the body. The impact sent him staggering back against the wall, and he was slow to recover.

One of the good things of these sessions, Alison thought distantly, was that it proved to her that she had indeed beaten down her old habit of nervously biting her nails. Barely, but she had. Instead she stood dead still, watching every shift of action in the room intently, ignoring the other two in the room entirely. Keeping her mind still and her thoughts clear, somehow.

It was pure bloody-minded stubbornness that kept him moving - or maybe something else. The memory of that blank whiteness danced in and out of his mind like a ghost, taunting him. This is what happens when you stop, a voice whispered at the back of his mind. When you fail. Back here. It always ends up back here...

A noise that was half-frustration, half-despair escaped him and he picked up the pace. Catch the bullets. Deflect the blasts. Eye on the target. Keep one eye on the...

A portion of the wall beside him swung outwards like an outflung arm, catching him hard across the chest and knocking him down, driving the breath from his lungs. He hit the ground wheezing. Stopped. He had stopped. No stopping. And yet... Getting back to his feet was a painfully slow process. Moving forward again was even more difficult.

She'd added a small something to this program, buildling on small hints from the previous ones. Moments to stop and regroup. To think. To possibly realize. And it was hell to watch and do nothing and not move and not even allow herself to think because the one who had to do that, the only one who could right now...

... was Nathan.

Steadying himself with one hand on the wall, unconsciously shielding from the crossfire, Nathan stared straight ahead at the dancing target. Well within his telekinetic reach, but that wasn't the point of the scenario. Physical touch only. If he reached out right here and yanked it down out of the air, he'd break the rules. Fail.

But he couldn't reach it. He couldn't. There was a stabbing pain in his side every time he breathed, enough to tell him that yes, this time he'd actually managed to crack a rib. The rate of fire picked up sharply, as if to goad him onwards, but he didn't move.

He couldn't reach it.

He couldn't.

He was going to fail. Whatever he did, he was going to fail, and Nathan reeled back against the wall, his mind spinning at the realization.

"He's hurt," Scott said suddenly, breaking the silence in the control booth. His hand hovered over the console, but only hovered. "Alison?" he asked, looking very levelly at her.

"Wait."

She could feel the weight of both Ororo and Scott's gazes on her for a moment, but dismissed it entirely, focusing entirely on the events unfurling down in the Danger Room.

"Are you certain?" Ororo's voice was without judgement, merely asking a question she felt needed asking.

"Yes. Wait." Alison didn't even look at her as she answered. Nathan had paused. It was the first time she'd seen him stop, instead of stubbornly trying to make his way through, one way or another. "Just a bit longer," she murmured, not realizing she had taken a step closer to the observation booth's window, and then another. Watching and waiting.

He could almost hear the tactical imperatives. Demanding that he move forward. One foot in front of the other, don't stop, no surrender, no retreat... but he'd fought and still wound up in the White Room, hadn't he? Time after time after time. Fought and lost. Shaking, Nathan pushed himself upright, struggling to focus on the here and now, not the fear. Not the empty whiteness in his mind. Here. Now. The scenario. The game he couldn't win.

No-win.

No-win.

Every muscle in his body screamed at him to move forward, but Nathan fought the pull and turned, staggering back the way he'd come, barely managing to shield and dodge what the Room threw at him. His vision was blurring in a very specific sort of way, his breath coming in hoarse gasps, but he kept going, his gaze fixed on the control panel with the emergency killswitch, on the far wall.

He took a few last hits in the process as his shields frayed and wavered, but momentum and exhausted determination carried him onwards. His hand hit the control panel with bruising force, ending the program.

Practically pressed against the window, Alison smiled slowly, a near incredulous light in her eyes. "He did it." She pressed both hands to the window, staring at the figure now leaning on the wall, catching his breath. "Ha!" And then the smile vanished and barely dodging the chair which Ororo was occupying, Alison raced out of the observation booth.

---

Afterwards, with some more encouragement from Alison and the Askani, he sees what they've been trying to teach him - that sometimes retreat isn't defeat, but a right and viable option. 'With your shield or on it' is no way to live.

Nathan slid down the wall into an exhausted heap, trying to catch his breath, pain flaring in his side with every labored gasp. The dampness on his cheeks caught his attention and he scrubbed at them weakly. There was the nearly-overwhelming need to get up, to get out of here and somewhere else, somewhere quiet... to hide? But he didn't think he could have gotten to his feet if he'd tried.

The sound of footsteps, racing down the hallway and slowing down only at the last moment gave him ample warning, a moment later hands pressing gently to his sides as Alison kneeled next to him. "Cracked only." She didn't bother to tell him to take shallow breaths, knowing that would be useless for now. His side would be sore for a while because of this, but the trade off was more than worth it. Bruises and a cracked rib, against this result and the consequences of it...

But they weren't done. Not just yet.

"Nathan? Look at me." She knew what she had to do, knew what was most important now and her voice was strong and steady as a result of this. "Why did you turn back?"

"Couldn't do it." He had to force the words out, the tightness in his chest and throat having nothing to do with the cracked rib. He couldn't bring himself to meet her eyes, though. "Not the way... I had to. Not in the shape I was in... maybe not if I'd been fresh..." It burned to say, and he flinched away from Alison's hands almost reflexively.

"Think back. Over all the sessions. There's a pattern there." Light bled into being, curling around his middle. "Careful. Let me know if this is too tight." Solid light was still hard, but this wasn't far from the light shield she had down well. She was just making it partial. And on someone else. "What's the overall pattern of everything we've been doing?" Her voice was gentle, though there was an intensity she could barely shield in her thoughts.

Scott came in, followed by Ororo, but hung back, watching carefully. This had been Alison's show, after all. Based on her conviction that she understood the problem, if also on advice from himself and Ororo and Charles. He wasn't going to stick his nose into the coda here, unless it became necessary. Still, he watched Nathan carefully, not entirely liking what he saw, and well aware of the fact that they could not let the man out of here until they were sure he'd processed what had just happened.

"Patterns," Nathan muttered feebly. "You..." It hit him then, of course; he wasn't stupid, contrary to the opinion held by some. This scenario, all the others - sense in the nonsense. There were impossible, because they were meant to be that way. Like an equation, standing in for the reality of the more complex situations the X-Men faced. Where fighting flat out was rarely the right answer, or even a good option. Where you could find yourself facing restraints as concrete as overwhelming odds and as intangible as the fact that you were supposed to be one of the good guys...

They'd all been no-win scenarios. Every single one of them. Designed to show him... no, to make him see for himself that there were times when no clear-cut victory would be possible. When you had to retreat. Something you didn't learn when you had the power to tear through just about every enemy you'd ever faced. When you had been taught since childhood - since childhood, not just since Mistra - that to hold back was to fail, to fail was to be weak. To be weak was to be punished.

He didn't have the breath or the focus to put that all into words, so he pushed it at the three of them telepathically, tangled thoughts around that single, crystal-clear realization. Because once you had the heart of the pattern, all the rest of it fell into place.

His eyes were blurring again and he squeezed them shut, his head drooping forward. If it was what they'd been trying to teach him, why did he feel so defeated?

"Yes." It was oh so hard to try and dampen the exultation, to try and make sure Nathan didn't get overwhelmed by that and instead caught on to what she wanted to tell him, what she needed him to understand for now. "Now look at the patterns inside your mind, Nathan." She was whispering, even though he could probably 'hear' her on more levels - it didn't matter if he did now. He'd done the important work on his own. "Look at the patterns inside your mind and find the one that's changed. The one you changed. Just concentrate on that one. Not the rest. Not what the rest is telling you. Just the new."

If that could get anchored, if he could separate that from the rest and then see what was influencing him and how. Then the groundwork was set.

He'd retreated, Nathan thought dizzily. He hadn't won, but hadn't lost. He'd retreated, and he was supposed to have retreated, he was supposed to have retreated right from the start. No punishment, no White Room...

#You never quite saw it,# Askani whispered softly in the back of his mind. #We fought to the end, yes, but there were so many days before that, Nathan. Days where we fought and retreated and lived to fight another day. Lived to live another day. We fought to live, we didn't live to fight.#

And the patterns resolved into a new complexity. Just like that.