Summary:Hisako and Lydia interrupt Carin in the midst of training in the Danger Room, then decided to join forces to fight brightly colored pirates! Log Info:Storyteller: None |
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While many students, in fact most of them, aren't actually in training to join the X-Men necessarily (as most are far too young to make that sort of decision and Professor X would NEVER allow barely trained teenagers out on missions), the Danger Room is actually in use for the school itself for a more advanced gymnasium, with safeties and armor and such for peopel who want to test out their power or get used to them in a controlled setting. Or who just want a work out that they can't get with the standard gym equipment. Thus, gym periods are scheduled and different students are assigned to particular teachers to learn with others with similar powers often.
That's not to say that students can't sign up for open time on the Danger Room - not everyone likes working in a group. Especially if they've experienced the worst of public ridicule in school gyms previous to arrival. Or others, like Carin, have a class schedule that is wacky, because of the amount of remedial courses she's been saddled with, combined with a bit of shyness about showing off her powers. She's…self conscious.
Not because she sucks at it, mind. More because she's a little scared what people would think of her if they knew just how trained she is to really hurt people. Not that she wants to, particularly…but on the other hand, she wants to be able to defend herself. For reasons.
Which is why Carin is currently in the Danger Room doing one of the advanced self defense courses she's been cleared for by the teaching staff, at a time when most kids are busy hanging out after classes and studying or the like in their rooms. She's a bit distracted today, however…so she forgot to lock the door.
While Lydia doesn't live at the mansion anymore, she does stop by from time to time to visit, and to get some advice from the professors. Today, she stopped by one of the councilors to talk about the incident in the park and the thug and his murder. She thought she could deal with it on her own, but after many sleepless nights and just as many nightmares, she decided to finally see somebody about it.
It was an emotionally draining session, but the frustration of being helpless to prevent it leads her to the Danger Room so she can work on a few things so that if that kind of thing happens again, she'll be better prepared. So here she is, dressed in borrowed school training uniform (she really should get one of her own… one that doesn't pinch) with her hair tied back into a ponytail.
When she gets there she sees that it's currently in use, so she steps up to the intercom and buzzes the occupant. "Hey there, mind one more? I need to blow off some steam."
"Make that two more, if you're willing," speaks up a third voice. Hisako's currently in a tank top and yoga pants, and her hair is similarly tied back in a ponytail (that she doesn't usually bother with in the field). "How are you … ah." She pauses, racking her brain. "…. Dietrich? I trust the city's been treating you well?"
She isn't sure who else might be in the Danger Room at this hour, but she's in no special hurry to intrude - and she'll find out who *is* in there given a little patience.
Inside the room…is a blur of motion that darts between a variety of enemy targets, all attempting to draw a bead on her with a variety of guns or physical weapons in some cases. Even the targets are moving a bit faster than normal, or at least at the peak of human reflexes, which makes it much more challenging for Carin to get in and get out with a variety of strikes, usually by coming in from an angle her target can't see rather than head on.
The intercom startles her enought that she flubs her strikes, then narrowly has to throw herself forward to avoid a bat, before rolling to avoid getting shot a whooooole lot as she yelps. "Freeze program!" The figures surrounding her halt, caught in their last positions as Carin pants softly. She's dressed in…well, her costume, of a sort. Green and gold with lightning bolts. Mostly because it's the only thing that really stands up to the friction of prolonged use well. She pants softly, then says. "Um, end program." The Danger Room resets to a neutral state as she walks over, then opens the door, blinking. "Oh…um, if ya got time saved I can come back later too…uh…Lydia and…Hisao, right?" she tries.
Lydia turns at the voice and waves at Hisako, leaving green trailers behind. "Oh, hi there! Yeah. Lydia. It's been mostly good. Had a run in with a thug the other day and things got messy." She winces as she says that. Messy indeed.
Turning to the intercom she replies to the speedster, "I don't have anything reserved. Just… just seeing if it was free. I'm rusty and I need to brush up on my skills." She pauses and looks at Hisako, "But I don't mind sharing it with a couple of people. The more the merrier."
"Hisako," the young Japanese woman corrects with a gentle smile. "And I didn't have time reserved, no, but I wanted to get some practice of my own in. My apologies if we threw your focus off at a bad moment." She nods to Lydia, grimacing sympathetically. "I see. Maybe we can walk through what happened - if that's what you're worried about," she adds quickly. "If it was too messy, I'm not sure what I can do, except offer to let you practice takedowns on me."
She smiles faintly, 'armoring up' - yellow energy spreading around her body to form the protective telekinetic construct which constitutes her power. "You'd probably have to work at it to hurt me that badly," she adds.
Carin flushes at her mistake…pretty evidently too, with her pale skin as she steps back. "Um, sure, if ya want, I guess?" she replies hesistantly. "Uh, do ya…got somethin' ya normally run for this or somethin' in mind for how ya wanna train?" Her arms fold a bit defensively over her chest now as she shifts from foot to foot slightly. "I mean, um…dependin' how tough ya wanna have it…"
Lydia rubs the back of her head. "I don't know," she says to Hisako, looking rather embarrassed. "If I go all out I can punch holes in cars. Like…. the entire car." She turns to Carin, "It's up to you guys. I wasn't going to do anything too intense, but I can handle it if you all want it." Regardless, Lydia 'armors up' herself, which is mostly coalescing the everpresent mist of ecoplasm that surrounds her into glowing green armor. This time she shapes the helmet into a simple eagle motif.
Hisako looks sheepish, "For solo training, I usually dial up Sentinels or something. You two would probably be better off without going that far, unless you *want* to practice fighting giant robots. But that'd probably be in the category of 'too intense' for an evening's workout and practice," she says wryly to Lydia, giving the ectoplasmic exoskeleton an interested look. "Huh … do you have to consciously shape it, or does it 'default' to a certain arrangement?" she wonders on her way into the Danger Room.
"Uh…well..why don't ya, like, start off /not/ at full strength an' make sure she can take it first then." Carin suggests, as she glances between the two armored girls and her very unarmored self. "Christ, a Sentinel? That's nut!" She bites her lower lip. "Um, well, you have to set the difficulty and safeties and it allows you opponents based on the level you set. I have 'em set mostly human but really fast reflex-wise."
"Since I can make it into any shape I want," she says, holding out a hand and letting a chair form into her hand to demonstrate, "I have to concentrate to shape it. Some things I don't have to spend much time on. Things like this, and the wings, and claws that go with the armor, I can just keep it in the back of my mind without much of a problem."
"I don't think I can take on a sentinel by myself," Lydia says doubtfully. "So we'll have to dial it down a bit. I also don't think I could handle things that are fast enough to hit you when you're running like that."
"Trust me, I was *not* going to throw a Sentinel at the two of you!" Hisako says wryly. "Most mutants have trouble tangling with Sentinels at their size, anyway - and I have to keep my guard up too, for that matter." She grimaces a little, thinking about the times those big robots have been smart enough to shoot plain old lasers at her. Through her armor.
Thankfully, Sentinels aren't that common a threat in the world these days … as far as she knows, anyway.
"So what was it you ran into out there, Lydia? Maybe a scenario along those lines - but, only if you want to. Otherwise we can just go with random HYDRA mobs or something," she finihes with a shrug.
Carin fidgets a bit, reaching up to tuck a few coppery strands of hair behind her ear as she hunches her shoulders slightly. "Um, I'm good with whatever?" she offers, wanting to…well, get along. She's a little nervous, if she's honest..these girls seem to be used to fighting, and she's not…sure how she feels about someone who can really fight seein gher doing stuff in here. Mostly because she has a weird guilt about the fact she can do it. Go fig, people trying to turn you into a sociopathic murder monkey will do that to a girl.
Lydia holds herself as she recalls the incident for Misako. "Okay. I was out in the park watching Zatanna do some street magic when this guy came up to rob her. I got the shotgun out of his hands, and Zatanna managed to tackle him with the table she was performing on. He had this device which just screamed and made it real hard to concentrate on anything." She starts to hug herself tightly. "He… he wasn't alone. There was a guy who was invisible who I guess thought the thug was disposable so he blew his brains out." Lydia shudders at the memory. "It… it went everywhere."
She shakes her head and says, "That's not something you can really program the Danger Room for. I mean, psychological trauma." She takes a deep breath and unwinds her arms from around herself. "I can handle Hydra agents. Let's do that. As long as their heads don't explode.
Cue a very intense and deeply sympathetic wince from Hisako. "Ugh. Yeah, that would be … gods. I'm sorry you ran into something like that. Have you talked to somebody? One of the counselors here, or somebody outside the Institute?"
*Definitely* no exploding heads, then. And maybe keep the presence of firearms to a minimum in the simulation, for that matter - tire irons, chains, classical thug melee armory. She starts programming up a scenario with that in mind … although, that doesn't quite mesh with HYDRA … hmmm.
Carin blinks a bit, studying Lydia, then looks away. "…y-yeah, that's…not easy to forget. " she murmurs softly, with something in her tone, before walking over to the controls to watch. "Maybe something more…like…not as threatening looking or something to start, yeah?" she offers as a suggestion. "Lightly, brightly colored stuff."
Lydia nods at Hisako. "Yeah. That's why I was here. I had a good talk so I've got a good idea on things I can do that will help me sleep at night that doesn't involve prescription drugs." She shrugs, "And I figured, hey, since I'm here, I should do some training since it's been a while." The ecto-girl dips her head at Carin. "I think I can handle thugs and stuff. Or angry fluffy unicorns."
"Would you like ninja in technicolor jumpsuits or something?" Hisako retorts jokingly to Carin. "Here we go …"
The Danger Room's normal metal floor, walls, and ceiling are replaced by the high seas, a yacht with the three girls (apparently meant to be) on it, and a pirate galleon closing off the starboard bow.
"Good enough for some fun goon-beating?" Hisako asks the other two.
"Hey, multicolored ninjas are like a staple of beat 'em ups…." Carin protests a bit, smiling slightly, then blinking as she looks around. "Ooooh…okay. Um, pirates?" She ponders a bit. "I think I can do pirates. We're just, um, beating them up, not sinking their ship?"
The sight of the buccaneers and pirates causes Lydia to laugh in delight. "This is perfect," she says gleefully. She turns to Carin and jests, "The only multicolored ninjas I know were turtles. Let's do this!" And with that, she steps out onto the yacht, and waits for the other girls to join her."
"Beat them up, toss them overboard, whatever. Bonus points if we get their treasure onto our yacht instead of them looting our safe," Hisako reports after reviewing the simulation notes (she didn't cook this all up on the spur of the moment), "and best if we cripple their ship without sinking it."
She moves to her starting mark on the yacht, rolling her shoulders. "Ready when you are!"
Carin takes a dep breath as the ship gets closer, and closer, before boarding hooks are thrown over and the first planks bridge the gap. "I'll break 'em up a bit!" she says, crouching down into a runner's start…then there's a WHOOOSH as she's off, vanishign in a blur as she pinballs right through the center of the oncoming pirates, knocking them left and right as she zips apart, focusing on breaking up any groups of them that are forming!
"Right behind you!" shouts Lydia, glowing emerald wings unfolding from her armor's back, and she rockets into the air, hot on the heels of the speedster. "I'll take down their sails!"
The pirates are quickly knocked for a loop as Carin launches into their midst, and then Lydia flies for the pirate ship's sails, ready to restitch the canvas into so many lace doilies, or something similarly useless on the high seas. That just leaves Hisako, her armor scaling up to about eight feet, and leaping from their yacht to the galleon's decks - ready to start throwing the pirates' cannon off the edge, and maybe take some pirates with them.
It's not going to be a particularly epic struggle … but it's definitely going to be good stress relief for the three mutants.