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Summary: Professor Xorn runs a final Danger Room session for Cloud to be tested one last time on his leadership skills.
Date: June 17, 2011
Log Title: Leadership Test
Rating: PG
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.
A day before graduation and a few days after the previous Danger Room Session, a mental summons goes out to all students who would like a Danger Room session. Xorn, dressed in his X-Man uniform of white robes and sash adorned with Xs an his metal mask keeping his black hole in check, is in the middle of the holographic room hovering a few feet off the ground as he awaits anyone who would like to partake in the session.
It's been a difficult couple of days and Cloud could do with blowing off some steam, also this will probably be the last chance he'll ever have for some time in the Danger Room, so dressed in his squad uniform, black boots, black jean-like pants and a black t-shirt with the compulsory green X on the chest he wanders into the DR, "Hmm wonder who else shows up?"
Sophie makes her second appearance for the week in the Danger Room, dressed as before in her outfit that includes a full length skirt, slit up the right side. Her cane taps softly, announcing her arrival as she steps into the room, and comes to a stop just past the threshold, after moving to one side so as not to block the door. She clasps her hands around the top of her cane, bows her head, and waits for others to arrive.
Having been face down on his bed taking a nap and quite asleep Tyler startles awake from the mental summons from the professor. With a wide yawn the teen rolls off the bed nearly collapsing to the floor rather than standing on his feet. Why wasn't the school year over yet? Not only because he'd no longer be a Freshman but also because he had things to do! Protesting his lot in life the entire time he pulls on his gear Tyler's finally dressed then wanders down to the Danger Room to notice Cloud entering the DR. Ruhoh, a graduating senior is present, that couldn't be good!
It's been a while since Tara has done some Danger Room work and has decided that Xorn's open invitation is a good opportunity to get in some more practice time before the school is out. She wanders into the room itself dressed up in her modified team uniform, all purple and black. The sleeves have been removed and the material had been used to fashion a purple blindfold. Seeing a few other students here she gives them a friendly wave. "Hey, guys!" With that she starts warming up by doing a few stretches.
Arriving dressed in his team uniform of a purple and black, Kieran smiles a little bit as he spots Tyler present and the teen does notice Cloud and gives him a polite nod. "Hey Tara." He says spotting his other teammate. He doesn't know what else to say right now but a good work out would be good right now. It's been pushing his powers to the limit.
As Xorn watches the students enter, he has encountered almost all. There are so many students. Tara is one he only knows of from her file. Xorn bows to everyone present, "Welcome, students, and thank you all for coming. I believe you should all know each other. If not, please make quick introductions." He looks down, "As you are all aware, the class of 2011 will be graduating and among those is Rush, Cloud Rosen." He gestures to Cloud for a moment, "Today's session will be in assistance to him. As a graduating senior, Cloud, today's session will not involve your usual workouts against supervillains. This is one final session on leadership and team skills. And this will be a simple game of catch for all of you." Lowering himself to the ground, Xorn addresses Cloud directly, "You will lead this group from various squads. You must capture and restrain your target. I will mentally brief you on this group of student's powers and skills."
Xorn telepathically scans to Cloud the powers and skills of Sophie, Tyler, Tara, and Kieran, while addressing the others, "Cloud will take the lead. You are to help him Cloud in the quest to capture and restrain his target." Rising up about ten feet above the students, "Oh and I am the target." The Danger Room suddenly goes black and everyone inside finds themselves in an open grassy field, a river nearby with some trees in the distance.
Cloud gives a nods in greeting to Kieran and Tyler as they enter and a "Hey", to the two girls whom he's never met and from he's perspective look blind, hmm wonder how they've adapted to these sessions? Wait did Xorn just say… "You're putting me in charge?, you sure?", he closes his eyes as he gets a download of the groups powers and a bit of an understanding of how Tara works though the sessions, the knowledge of what Tyler can do has him staring at the boy for a few seconds, "Wasn't expecting that". He nods to Xorn when the objective is explained up until the point where he gives them the target, "You're shitting me?"
Tara folds her arms as she listens to Xorn's instructions. As soon as the instructor indicates that he's the target, she's quick to act, without waiting for instruction from Cloud. Since he's only ten feet above her, he's within easy grasp of her telekinetics so she tries to get a good grasp on one of his ankles. "I got him!"
There are quite a lot of people here so Tyler is hanging back folding his arms across his chest. This is serious times and he's paid attention to the intstructions. When Cloud looks to him and makes a comment about his powers the teen shrugs emitting a, "Heh." Shaking himself bodily he sucks in a breath, "Ok. I don't wake up from naps well. I apologize for the cranky in advance. Oh, hey Tara's won already!" Pointing out the Paragon dangling in the air.
"I don't remember you waking up that badly from naps." Kieran says laughing a bit at Tyler,"We have to try and capture the teacher?" Then Tara grasps him with her TK,"Should I be doing something here or are we done already, because there was a nice show due on later and so forth." His eyes flicker a little bit as he looks around at the folks in the room.
Watching from the control booth, the real Xorn takes note and nods studying the moves and how Tara was quick to act without Cloud's order. He shakes his head at Cloud's use of curse words, but Sophie speaks for him. The Xorn that is with the students, finds his ankle caught in a telekinetic grasp. The energy behind the mask seems to send off wisps of energy as he stares down at the students. Suddenly each of the students may feel knots in their stomachs as their centers of gravity are shifted and displaced. They may or may not feel slightly nauseous the girls will find themselves a lot lighter and may start to float up, the boys will find their weights increased by gravity and pulled closer to the ground. "Do not dismiss your target just yet. It is capture and restrain. And Cloud, you should start to take control or strategize. Don't simply rely on who you believe is your strongest member."
Sophie sucks in her breath as she feels herself starting to float upwards; and then she flails her arms in the air, waving her cane about as she shrieks. "No— No! Not away from the ground! Stop this! Make it stop!" The blind girl makes a dive for the ground, or at least the best that she can manage to do so while becoming weightless; she legs her cane dangle by the loop around her wrist as she grabs at grass, the ground, anything to try to keep herself floating upwards. "Help! Someone! I cannot do this!"
When Cloud suddenly finds himself much heavier than usual being pulled towards the ground, he does the first thing he can think of, absorb. His irises turn a silver colour, luck is on his side as he's got some experience with gravitational energy having absorbed similar before, his first move is to focus on getting the screaming Sophie down and hopefully distract Xorn as he focuses his energy on putting gravity back on Sophie, "As soon as you guys can just run".
"I forgot to eat…" Tyler moans feeling suddenly sick and wobbles on his feet for a moment before feeling like he turned heavier. His legs feel like concrete slabs moving along the ground. "Sophie! Calm down dude, focus!" Since Cloud has gone to her he looks to his team leader with eyebrows shooting up to his flipping hair. "Run? You've got to be kidding me." Sometimes running from a situation was the best call of action but when one moved about as slow as a hundred something pound tortoise that was really laughable. Kieran was near, and Tara as well, so he moves towards the other girl to offer help should she float up as well.
Being a gymnast, Tara is no stranger to having her center of gravity being thrown for a loop. She's also no stranger to how disquieting it can be if one is unprepared for it and one is blind, and so now her attention is divided. One the one telekinetic hand she's got a hold of their target, and the other she reaches out to Sophie and gently pushes her down so she doesn't go floating off. Tara herself lifts a few feet off the ground, being held between the two acts. "I gotcha, Sophie!" she calls out, not really remembering the other girl's callsign. "Take off your shoes! It'll help you keep in touch with the ground." It won't really, but the extra sensory input usually helps in situations like this. When Cloud gives his command she asks, "Run? But I've got him!"
The increased gravity has Kieran not even bothering to try and move from the spot. "How about I just give him a nice little bolt of lightning for his trouble?" Kieran says looking over at Cloud,"Cause right now I'm really wanting to blast something." The feeling heavy from the gravity has him rather annoyed about the whole thing. "Ummm… So what are we doing cloud because running not so much an option right now, because it'd just waste energy."
The real Xorn sends a telepathic message to Sophie in an attempt to calm her down as Cloud and Tara swoops in to save her. Xorn wonders why Cloud would order the others to run. Leaders don't necessarily need to face a target alone. And both Tara and Cloud going to save Sophie wastes time and energy.
The return of gravity to the Sophie does catch Xorn's attention. With his ankle still caught in Tara's TK grasp, shifts gravity around again. The shift is quick, fast, and like a gut punch to those not used to dealing with sudden shifts like that the boys would now be rising and the girls moving toward the ground, if it takes effect.
Sophie pants heavily, and manages to find a good hand-hold on an exposed root. She shakes her head, and crouches down as she digs in. "I'm fine," she whispers, in a strained sounding voice. "I'm fine. I'll be fine. Just… give me a few minutes, si?" She holds on to the root with one hand, and pats the ground around herself. "Si, Tara," she replies, raising her voice to be heard. "I will… just… in a moment."
As the gravity shifts again Cloud stops focusing on her and tries to think, he is so not ready for this, what was Xorn thinking in that big met…, ok now he has an idea, "Kieran, you have some control over magnetism right, can you try to pull Xorn to the floor by his head, and Tyler can you blast him, but only try to stun, not kill, Tara try to slam him to the floor", he himself focuses the gravitational energy he absorbed on pulling Xorn down to, hopefully the combination of the four of them will break Xorn's concentration, he gives Sophie a chance to recover, he's gonna need her next.
Tyler feels like he'd just gone down a steep roller coaster and banked quickly in the other direction. Now floating up off the ground there is enough space between him and the others that he shifts into his form hovering in the air though uncertain. A white glow radiates out from his hands as he gathers power for a blast. Having never fired while off the ground he merely glances Clouds way then prays to whatever God is listening that he doesn't go flying backward arse over tea kettle as he takes a shot at the floating professor.
Now that Sophie is safe, Tara is able to focus all of her energies on Xorn. However, the sudden reverse in gravity throws the girl to the ground, and she manages to catch herself in a roll before she can land badly, and causes her concentration on the teacher to falter for a moment.
Reaching out with his magnetic abilities to grasp the helmet with his powers and try and pull it towards the ground, Kieran's magnetic controls are pretty simple in their movements. Up, down, and that sort of thing after all. Even as he goes up into the air, he manages to keep his focus over using his magnetic abilities. That's one aspect of his powers that he doesn't really use that often, but he's getting stronger at it.
Knowing that if the mask is pulled off, it will unleash Xorn's massive gravitational force from the black hole that is his head and last time that happened many many many people died and were warped beyond recognition. So when the mask is yanks downward he allows it to happen just as he feels a shift in his own personal gravity and then he is brought to the ground just as Tyler's blast strikes the teacher. The gravity that has been manipulated returns to normal. Those who were on the ground are freed from the pressure weighing them down. Those who were in the air finding their weight returning to them, but now they are dropping. Suddenly a door opens in the air and Xorn steps out and before Kieran and Tyler hit the ground, real Xorn applies the correct amount of gravity so they are not hurt from the fall. Looking at the fallen form of his image created by the Danger Room, Xorn nods his head and a disembodied voice speaks out, "Congrats. You win!"
Sophie gasps softly, as she feels her weight return to what it should be. She remains crouching on the ground, and brushes her fingertips through her hair. "They won," she whispers, and shakes her head. "I did nothing, other than scream and whimper. But perhaps next time I shall be of better use, si?" She stands up slowly, and returns her cane to her hand, so she may probe the ground around herself. "I have… not felt such a thing before."
Tara gets to her feet once the gravity lets up. "Wait, what? That's it?" she asks incredulously as Xorn announces their victory. "We hardly got started!" She dusts the virtual dirt off her knees and walks over to the other blind girl. "Naw. You did fine. Not everybody can be as awesome as me."
The team has won? Tyler can't believe that the session is already over as he switches to hovering in the air to keep away from those on the ground. Slowly the hovering man made of cosmic material lowers to the ground instantly killing the grass on the ground around him in a two foot radius. Since the session is complete there is a brief bright flash of white light leaving a blonde haired teen standing amongst the ruined blades of grass. "That's a wrap? I thought we'd be fighting forevery." He walks over to stand amongst his friends and compliments Kieran for getting a hold of not-Xorns mask and bringing the man down.
"I think we should be glad that the mask didn't come off." Kieran says smiling a little bit at Tyler and looking rather relieved when he manages to get successfully down on the ground without hurting himself. "I'm not complaining. After the last time that we fought that I had almost no juice left in me." He says casually as he considers this,"Well I guess now we go get to do other things besides this." He says casually.
As Xorn hits the floor, gravity rights itself and Xorn declares that they've won Cloud releases the energy he absorbed, he personally is disappointed in himself, due to his bad leadership Sophie is putting herself down and they just spent ten minutes either stuck on the floor or floating in the air, "You guys did great, perfect aim and good focus", he thinks to Xorn, 'That was poor on my part right?'
The room returns to its normal empty hollow metallic shell as the field, grass, trees, and river disappear. "You all did very well against my simulacra. However had it been the real thing." Xorn shrugs as the mutants exit. He sends a telepathic message to Cloud, "It was a rough start. Tara just jumped right in and Sophie did not do as well. And telling everyone to run was not necessarily the best plan of attack. However, you saved Sophie, you took control and came up with the plan of attack utilizing your team's strong points and powers. That is a sign of a good leader. Again, you have earned your graduation and if this is just a small hint at the future, then you will do great things for mutantdom." The lights go off and Xorn exits with Cloud patting his student's shoulder, "Good job."
