2011-07-03: Daemon S Hell

Players: Ashley and Xorn

Ashley_icon.jpg Xorn_icon.jpg

Summary: Ashley's first Danger Room Session

Date: July 3, 2011

Log Title: Daemon's Hell

Rating: R


Xavier Mansion - Danger Room

A product of Shi'ar technology, the room generates apparently solid, realistic imagery by manipulation high-resolution force fields and holograms. The walls and floor appear as a steel room until a program is turned on. Overhanging the room in the center is a control Room managing the room's mechanisms to oversee the exercise while ensuring the subject's safety.


In the Control Room, Shen Xorn in his usual garb of the white robe turned X-Man costume with metallic mask sits at the controls and begins to enter a program for one of his newest advisees. Once it is set, he nods, “This should work.” His voice echoes in the hollow chamber as he leaves the Control Booth and literally floats down into the Danger Room. Hovering a few feet off the ground and taking a somewhat meditative pose, he telepathically summons Ashley. <Ashley, please report to the Danger Room in your squad uniform. It is time for your first Danger Room Session.>

The telepathic summons catches Ash unawares; he totally didn't know that Xorn could even do something like that. Well, chalk it up to his unfamiliarity with mutant powers. Regardless, he makes his way back to the dorms from lurking about the Mansion grounds, and then back to the manor itself, heading downstairs. In short order, he's found the Danger Room and is moving cautiously through the doors, glancing about and tugging at the uniform. First time in the outfit, and he's not exactly sure about this "unstable molecules" thing.

“Oh I see the Ms. Frost gave you the unstable molecules uniform. Very good, it will protect you and allow you to use your powers without fear of embarrassment.” Shaking his head as she enters, Xorn offers his student, “Welcome to the Danger Room. This room allows the students to train in a holographic virtual reality of sorts. The room can change into any environment and create realistic scenarios. This is where the powers training is done for the students. As your squad leader, you and the rest of the Alphans will be working together to work on exercises in teamwork. As your faculty advisor, I will be training with you individually in the development and use of your powers.” He scratches what would be considered a chin on his mask, “I have created a scenario for your first session, but I will be linked with you telepathically and monitoring your emotional state as well. And while things may appear dangerous in this room, there are safety measures put in place for your protection. Any questions?”

"Alphans, huh…" Ash murmurs, even as he stands about, looking at the huge blank space. "…figured it was Alphas…" he finishes, as his attention comes back to Xorn. "The uniform, yeah…" Ash answers his squad leader, his attention drifting again to the space. "So it's like that hologram room thing on Star Trek?" the teen asks, one arm bending around behind his back to tug on the spine of the uniform, readjusting it once more. Then the arm unbends, running a hand through his short hair, and the absence of a hood to adjust bothers him slightly.

Smirking slightly, “No hood to cover your head. Don’t be ashamed to show your face.” Xorn then comments nonchalantly, “I am that familiar with this Star Trek you speak of. Other than students thinking I am like Darth Vader and that it appears I do Jedi mind-tricks.” With then, he bows, “Good luck, Ashley.” He stands up and his voice echoes out, “Run Sequence Daemon 1.” The room goes completely dark for a moment and then suddenly flames shoot out across the room as the scene plays out. It appears like some apocalyptic future. Ashley finds himself in an alleyway with the sky completely covered by dark fire and smoke. Buildings burned. Cars are wreaked. The world has gone to hell. Xorn is also seemingly not present (or visible).

A flicker across Ash's mind; he's not ashamed to show his face, it's just a thing, a habit. Like wearing a hat, or a favorite pair of shoes. As Hell shimmers to life around him, Ash's arm goes up over his face; a movement born more of instinct, than any actual discomfort, with his general ambivalence/immunity to heat. that arm lowers, hand waving infront of his face to clear some smoke away as he coughs from the acrid burn. "Well, this is delightful…" he says, glancing about the carnage spreading out before him. With nothing in his immediate vicinity, the teen moves towards the mouth of the alleyway.

As he reaches the mouth of the alleyway, he will find a man wearing a yellow/bluish costume with stripes similar to Wolverine, however, this man has no claws and his entire body is on fire. Part of his skin appears to be melting as he wields the fire igniting from his body. He is controlling the flames that have set the entire section of this city ablaze. Looking at Ashley, Daemon shakes his head and continues setting the things aflame.

Daemon continues to set the entire block ablaze including a few wreaked cars that seem to explode when his flame overheats them. Daemon watches his destruction and celebrates like an artists whose masterpiece has just been completed but instead of paint and canvas, he uses fire and the world. Daemon looks to Ashley one more time before walking towards a brick wall. Daemon’s body seems to grow brighter and more skin appears to flake off and burn as he increases his heat to the point where the brick wall simply melts around him and he enters the building. As he does so, screams can be heard particularly female screams and babies crying.

That certainly catches Ash's attention, his step freezing as the first wails reach his ears, right in midstep. "Hell…" he mutters; he was already several steps down the block before Daemon melted his way through brick and mortar to start terrorizing people. But he dashes back towards the building, a sprint born of years charging up and down a football field. Over some rubble, and in through the dripping hole in the wall, those baby blues scanning the immediate area quickly.

As Ashley scans the innards of the building, he’ll find charred skeletons and a acrid smell of burnt flesh. Daemon appears to setting random survivors of the apocalypse on fire. Two women appear to guard one room screaming for help and begging him not to kill the children. Two people, male and another female, appear to confront Daemon and fire off various energy blasts, which he gracefully dodges and then he ignites their clothes on fire sending them running towards Ashley as they scream as the fire burns them alive.

"Shit!" the teen utters as he steps right into the middle of it; and a charred ribcage, burnt bone crunching underfoot. Well, that'll be a whole different session once the adrenaline is out of his system. But at the screams of terror, his adrenal gland is surging at maximum. Operating more on habitual instinct to protect himself than any conscious thought, he pushes on the flames surrounding the two charging superheroes; unless Daemon is keeping the flames on the first two victims, Ash is intending to push the flames off of them, off to the side, like a windshield wiperblade sweeping away rain.

Telepathically speaking to Ashley, “Good job. You saved them.” Xorn commends his student while the flames simply extinguished by Ashley’s gesture. The two superbeings are saved but remain on the ground smoke emitting from where their clothes (or what is left of them) Daemon charges at the two women who are protecting the room with the babies. Both hands aflame as he swings at one and kicks at the other. He makes the fight more physical. Xorn monitors the physical surges within Ashley and the emotional rush as he continues the scenario.

Xorn can tell that extinguishing the flames isn't the outcome Ash was aiming for; just to get the fire off the people and onto the building-that-can't-feel-pain. He doesn't even consciously believe that he can snuff fire out, even if he's seen Jem do it with her abilities. As the women are attacked, that drive to protect kicks in, Xorn can pick up on the surge of it. "Hey, dirtbag!" he shouts, reaching out with his ability to try to pull the flaming Daemon back, "…leave them alone!"

Daemon feels a slight tug on his fire and looks back in dismay and surprise at Ashley, “Who are you?” For only the slightest of second’s Daemon’s fire body goes out leaving only flesh, which is enough for the women to act as they had dodged his attack. One manages to kick him in the groin and the other punches him straight in the jaw. Daemon lets out a moaned mutter of pain when he manages to set the clothes of the two women ablaze. They scream out and start screaming.

Other students might come back with a witty retort. Some X-Men might identify themselves heroically. Ash does neither; he just charges forwards as Daemon staggers back, dropping his shoulder in that same running tackle that took out more than his fair share of high school quarterbacks. Angling the rush so that if he sacks Daemon it'll be away from the burning women. Two steps into that charge, the defending women go up like candles, and Ash falters slightly, his attention diverted to a quick thrust of his hand, a physical motion connected to the mental push on the flames, to push them off the women.

The tackling sack connects with Daemon as he is pushed and knocked away from the women whose pained screams vocally demonstrate the pain they are in. As Ashley gestures with his hand, the fire flies from the women and onto the wall heading into the room with the infants. The women drop to the ground, smoking rising from their charred bodies, but at least they are alive. The babies continuing crying as the room they are in suddenly is now starting to be set on fire.

Nothing ever goes the way you want it to go. Ash heaves with the shoulder that digs into Daemon's stomach, the flames surrounding the villains body ignored. That lift with his shoulder is joined by his hands shoving the man as well, trying to heave him back and away. Unless Daemon does something during this to keep himself upright, Ash's next action is to focus on the flames threatening the children, pulling on them like he did with the fire consuming the villain, trying to draw the fire away from the walls of the children's room.

Daemon seems to fall over and does nothing to counter Ashley as he crawls away. His fire returning first to his body and then as Ashley focus to draw the fire out of the room with the infants. Ashley will find it not as easy as Daemon seems to focus on the fire as well. A battle of wills as the fire seems to flame out, but then grow. It moves in an out of the room as the two struggle for control of the fire.
Xorn watches in particular to see how Ashley handles someone else countering his control of fire.

Not very well, it seems. Ash's mouth goes to a thin line as his jaw clenches, his attention shifting back and forth from the prone Daemon to the flames threatening the screaming infants. Back and forth, back and forth as the pair seems evenly matched in the simulation, Ash losing ground slowly. As the first tongues of flame lick out towards the children, Ash screams in rage and leaps. But not for the children, no. He instead dives towards Daemon, hands reaching out for the man's shoulders; monitoring as he is, Xorn can see that Ash intends on curbstomping the villain, to beat his burnt head in if necessary. The threat of harm on innocents driving the teen into a murderous fit.

As Ashley to literally stomp on Daemon, he will find his body suddenly going askew as his body’s weight shifts an gravity around Ashley mid-leap goes almost non-existent. His body seems to float. Stepping out from the room which is all but on fire at this point, Xorn walks out carrying two babies. As Daemon remains on the ground, he leaps up ready to strike at Ashley when the simulation freezes. Xorn looks from Daemon to Ashley. “You are willing to kill? Under this circumstance, anyway?”

As Xorn steps out, though, his telepathy cuts through the rage pumping through the youth's veins. His words causing Ash's shoulders to slump as he realizes what he was going to do; obviously now that he's thought about it, killing isn't something that Ash is comfortable with. "…no, sir…" he says, lifting his head, twisting if he can to look towards the X-Man. "…but I couldn't pull it away…" he says, motioning with a hand towards Daemon, frozen in midleap, "….he kept pushing it back towards them, and I had to protect the
"….he kept pushing it back towards them, and I had to protect them…" he says, struggling to try to explain the rage, words faltering away.
Creative problem solving is not Ashley's strong suite.

“End sequence.” The room goes black and then returns to normal as does gravity around Ashley. Crossing his hands and stomping his foot as he shakes his head, “How do you feel the scenario went Ashley?” Xorn obviously has his own opinion, but first wants to hear what Ashley has to say. A tactic used by most parents on their kids or in this case, professor on student.

Boots hit the blank deck, and like any young man facing a superior, his eyes are downcast, shoulders slumped. "Probably failed, didn't I, sir?" he asks, eyes lifting towards Xorn's mask. "…tried to pound the bad guys head in, and didn't stop the fire…" he says, a further slump to his shoulders at the thought of dead children.

Shaking his head and letting out a sigh, which sounds louder through his mask. “Well, there was no grade for this. This was really just a measure of what you do and how you would act. Good points: You saved the people who Daemon had set on fire and you did it rather well, with simply gesture with your hands. Good.” He scratches the bottom part of his mask, “But when pushed to the brink you were willing to kill. And apparently not aware you were going to. Have you felt this way before?”

Ash nods slowly. He doesn't speak, but the memories are clear enough in his mind. The drunks trying to rape his girlfriend, and then beating her for resisting… something else is there, but he hides that, even from himself. Then the rage setting in as she screamed out for Ash to help her. The satisfaction of listening to drunken rednecks scream as they burned for what they've done, the feel of beating the alcohol out of them with his own two fists. Oh yes, the rage is there.

Seeing what is in Ashley’s mind and reading Ashley’s emotions, “I understand.” Xorn pauses a moment, “I understand your right to rage considering what happened to Juliana. I am genuinely sorry. We will work privately on how it has affected you and your future actions. But for your first scenario, you id manage to save four people. That is better than most do first time.” Xorn changes the subject, “How did you ‘feel’ being in that situation?”

Like an animal skittering away from the light, Ash's mind moves away from that painful set of memories, trying to protect itself from revisiting that road, at least right now. As the subject is changed, the youth's shoulders shift slightly in a shrug. "Good, I guess, when I was actually able to stop him."

“Ok, so you adjusted to the artificial environment very well. That is good. Future sessions won’t be as. . . apocalyptic. I wanted to push you for your first session to see how much you would unleash and how much you would hold back.” Xorn offers “You may think this did not go well. But you saved lives and you were in an unfamiliar situation.”

Ash nods, still looking crestfallen despite Xorn's praise of his ability to adapt to the situation. "At least it wasn't the Hulk, I guess…" he jokes a bit, recalling Xorn's previous threat for his first Danger Room session. "..was there anything else, sir?" he asks, tugging on the neck of the uniform. Eager to get out of the tight outfit.

“Yes, just one more thing. I would like for you to meet wit Dr. Jericho Mayfair-Parker. He is a teacher here and he will be helpful to talk to regarding what has happened in your past. Aside from meeting with him, you and I will meet privately to discuss things and work on your progression.” Xorn bows, “You are dismissed, Ashley. And think up a good codename.”

Ash nods at the directive to meet with a shrink, his nose scrunching up slightly at the thought. But he is damaged goods, he's not going to get out of couch sessions, that's for sure. "Yes sir." he says, and then the firebug is out the door and off to the showers.

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