2013.05.06 - Danger Room: The Dragonboy's Alley

The Danger Room. Training sessions have been a little sporadic, of late. And, after a chat with Kurt, Amanda has come up with a very simple scenario she wants to try out for the students. To that end, she's enlisted Angel's help -- and given him a few tricks to help him out. Among them is a camouflage spell. The man will NOT be easy to see, throughout all this. (It'll be up to him to keep moving fast enough not to be hit.)

The students involved, today, each have distinctly different abilities. Energy. Elements. Physical. Covers pretty much all the bases, when it comes to X-Action.

The environment has been programmed to look like a city -- high buildings like canyon bluffs, narrow alleys, and wide pedestrian crossings. The holograms, however, are augmented by the sorceress' power. There is the sense of a city to it. The holographic people feel like real people, full of life energy, to someone like Jocelyn. They smell like people to someone like Laura. It's an open market, a street fair of sorts, with lots of stands and kiosks for cover. At first glance, it's about as idyllic as NYC can ever get.

Having arrived at the Danger Room, unaware that anyone else was going to be here, Jocelyn enters the simulation from a boxing gym, appropriately enough. She's dressed in a t-shirt and a pair of black jeans at the moment. Knowing this was the Danger Room, Jocelyn pulls in some gravimetric energy from around her and charges up her physical capabilities. Sure, this might just be some sort of infiltration or information gathering exercise, but it didn't hurt to be prepared for the worst.

Having not yet been told what the purpose of this scenario was, Jocelyn does what seems the most prudent thing to her and just starts looking around. Okay, well, the Danger Room was giving off some lovely life energy. One of Amanda's tricks, no doubt. Regardless, the woman chooses simply to look around herself and try and see if she can't spot anything out of place, stepping out of the doorway as she does so. A thief, a con artist, or some random rampaging mutant of some type, or really anything that looked out of place. She's looking all around herself, including up and down. When you can see energy, looking in all directions tended to give you a little more to work with.

Josie has been excited about the Danger Room since Jubilee told her about it on the first night, even though all Josie knows about it is the name. That's enough, the name alone is exciting. So, when she was told to get ready for her first training session in the room, even taking the time to change into her training uniform and pull on her normal clothes over top, she's there at the entrance early, almost bouncing in excitement. Finally entering the room, she's got a big grin on her face... until, that is, she finds a city instead of a room. "Whoa," she says softly to herself, looking around. Still, after a split second of awe, she moves into the environment and does her best to start blending in, looking at stuff that's on sale, giving anybody who looks her way a cheerful smile, just as she would if she were really in such a street fair.

Angel had been given a few more instructions, but is currently on one of the 'rooftops', watching. The wonder of the Danger Room is that it can be pretty much any dimension it needs to be. Even at this vantage, he can easily see those students 'entering' the scenario. He doesn't know any of them, but it might be even better this way. Sometimes, one doesn't always know who might be a friend or who might be a foe.

Making note of the girls who appear, he makes sure to keep a good track of them as they make their way through the current scenario.

One of the students who wanders in is wearing black. All black. Black jeans. A black hoodie. Black combat boots.

But still, she enters alone. Possibly well after the others. And from a separate entrance.

But still, as the clawed and feral mutant looks around, she sniffs the air, while glancing about for the usual signs of potential threats....

Or in this case, teachers.

Still, as she enters and she takes the sights in, she can't help but smile. After all, a city? Urban action is where she may very well be at her best. That is outside of the whole assassin thing.

The whole thing starts innocently enough. A couple of girls stumble out of a nearby pub, fairly central to the action. They are laughing and giggling, clearly drunk. As they lurch down the street, several young men across the street notice them and make cat calling whistles. The girls give coquettish laughs, but otherwise largely ignore them. The turn down a side street -- an alleyway, really -- that will lead to another section of the simulation, but that is also largely empty aside from the airheads. The guys shove off the wall they were leaning against and start following them. One of them brushes against Josie, jostling her against the table of goods she examines but otherwise ignoring her, as he goes.

Walking into the alley from the opposite direction is a single man, dressed like a skateboarder -- as long as you overlook his old-man pennyloafers.

Okay, what have we here? Some drunk girls. Well, that could be a red herring, or it could be important. Some skater dude in...pennyloafers? Either the Danger Room was seriously confused, or Amanda was playing some weird joke with the system. And some men making cat-calling noises at the girls. Jocelyn had been on the streets often enough to know that this could mean trouble, and so the woman pushes off the wall and starts following the men quietly, sticking to the shadows and using her own skills at staying hidden and quiet to do so. The teen was pretty good at this sort of thing, mostly because she had to learn how to compensate for her height. Just blending in never really worked for Jocelyn, so being hidden was a better option.

As for Josie? Unfortunately, Jocelyn doesn't really know Josie, and so she doesn't pay the girl all that much mind. She's noted, of course, but Jocelyn doesn't recognize her as a student. There being a several year gap between them and Josie being rather new is likely the cause.

Josie braces herself against the stand as she's bumped, "Hey! Jerk." She looks up at the man, but when he ignores her she glances towards the alley where they're headed. After a moment, she puts down whatever she was looking at and starts to follow. She acts as subtle as she can, but subtle really isn't her style, so her following them is about as obvious as they are following the drunken girls.

Laura continues to sort of lurk. Or to be more exact, she tries to slink into the shadows as she notices those girls. they don't rate much attention. Nor do those guys. At least not until they go after the girls...

That causes the clawed girl to start to drift that way. While trying to stick to the shadows.

If she notices Jocelyn or Josie, or at least smells them, she doesn't let that alter things for her. not as she silently drifts towards the entrance of that alleyway and peers at the guy with the hoodie and penny loafers...

Loaferdude continues to walk into the alley, his head rising as he sees the girls -- sees the boys beyond. And definitely sees the completely unsubtle girl that follows them.

The boys continue their cat calling, jogging a little to catch up with the girls, soliciting them in a rather impolite manner. The girls try pushing them off, posturing as much as the boys in their own way. It's only when one of the boys pulls out a gun that things start to get really serious.

Loaferdude starts running toward them.

Gunmen. Lovely. Jocelyn just loves gunmen, really. Fortunately, she'd kept to the shadows, and she knew a few things about how to handle gunmen. The first step was going to be to keep the bullet from striking the women. Now, she could try and step in and grab the gun; she had the training for that. But there were a fair number of them, and if they were all armed, then chances were that one of them was going to get a shot off on the girls. It wouldn't do much to Jocelyn, but it would hurt the women in all probability. No, a little bit of crowd control was in order.

Focusing her kinetic energy, Jocelyn lets loose a vertical kinetic burst right up close to the boys, but just enough in front that the gun isn't 'through' the burst. She lets the burst go outward, towards the guys, but not at the women. In effect, the idea is to use it as a way to knock the boys backwards while also acting as a kinetic barrier to any gunfire that might happen. If she has this timed right, it should only hit the boys and knock them backwards on their butts and not loafer dude.

If she'd spotted any of the others yet, she doesn't indicate it quiet yet, instead choosing to remain hidden. Sometimes stealth was your best friend. Of course, Josie is horribly easy to spot. Must be a new student, Jocelyn was guessing. She didn't recognize her, but the girl was not at all subtle. But, she looked young, too.

Josie is just about to give up and assume this is just some weird flirting thing when she spots the gun. She hasn't at all noticed the other girls, but she does see the loafer guy running forward. Whether undercover cop or superhero, she figures he's running to help, so she does her best to distract, raising a hand and sending a small squirt of water at the back of the gunman's head, "Hey! Why don't you..." Whatever she was going to say, though, is interrupted by Jocelyn's force blast.

It often seems to be glossed over in news reels and in articles, but the general populace isn't used to folks showing up and using powers. The general populace isn't used to guns being waved about either. Even though they're in an alleyway, there are still people who see the gun and the kinetic burst from Jocelyn.

Someone screams and that sets off more shouts and screams.

Someone yells, "Get out of our town, Filthy Mutants!"

Being at a market, someone throws some tomatoes at the group, despite the guns.

High above, Angel still watches, waiting to see what happens.

Under other circumstances, the gun would probably be the first thing that Laura worries about. But she's been in enough Danger room sessions to know that things are rarely what they appear to be.

Of course as Jocelyn does her thing, she holds back. Or continues to hold back anyways. Sniffing the air a few times before she starts to move again in the shadows, she tries to get closer to loafer dude, before stepping out into the open, hopefully between him and the guys who were after those girls. Yes, she's trusting Jocelyn to cover her just in case she's wrong about her hunch.

"It's dealt with. You can go." is said to the hooded dude, even if he does apparently smell like motor oil.

The gunman stumbles back in surprise and fear as the kawoosh explodes towards him. Echoing the cries on the street, he swears. "Freakin' muties!" his voice filled with a combination of fear and loathing. His buddies are now digging into their coats for their own weapons.

The girls also scream as the kawoosh manifests, striking out against the boys. One clings to the other, her skin turning green and scaly for a moment, frills of skin expanding from her neck briefly as she buries her face into the other girl's coat. The first girl, who has not transformed, let's out a startled shout and starts pushing herself away from the mutant girl.

Loaferdude's own appearance morphs, flickering as the hologram around him dies. His skin is red, his eyes are black. He has a tail and talons on his hands and feet. He inhales a deep breath and blows it out at the backpeddling boys. As the spray from his mouth hits the oxygen in the air, it ignites in a gout of flame.

Well. Gunmen were going to be bad enough. Being in an extreme 'Mutants are Evil' simulation made it worse. Adding in a firebreathing demon dude and you've got a receipe for a mess, not to mention the girl who was now screaming at her friend the mutant.

Now, she wasn't that concerned about Laura's long-term health, given what Laura could do. However, Jocelyn could use that energy, and so the teenager reaches out with her power as she steps out of the shadows, pulling in a bunch of the thermal energy to hopefully minimize the damage done to Laura (and the surroundings!). She was covering her teammate! Then she reaches out to grab the mutant girl with her superhuman strength. "You're not safe here".

Understatement of the year.

"Back in a few," is added by Jocelyn over towards Laura and Josie. She trusts Laura to know that means seconds and not minutes, at the very least. Then, solidifying her grip on Green Mutant Girl and her friend, Jocelyn shoots up into the air and goes to put the girls safely on a pair of nearby roofs. Different roofs, because of the other girl's reactions, and ones that should have multiple stairs down to other streets.

Extract the civilians first, because otherwise this was gonna get messy. Another kinetic burst is let loose on the group of gunmen as Jocelyn flies up and away in an attempt to keep them down and unable to fire their weapons again. Non-lethal, of course, but enough to hopefully keep them from thinking about an attack.

Josie wasn't expecting any of this. She freezes up a split second, taking in the sudden appearance of so many other mutants around her. Then, though, she moves again as a tomato splats near her. She starts to move to stand protectively near the green girl, but then stops, nodding quickly to Jocelyn as she looks back and moves to try to kick one of the guns away from one of them after Jocelyn's latest blast.

The crowd continues to hurl unsults and vegetables at the group, but at the appearance of more mutants, there's more screaming.

"Get out of here! Mutants don't belong here!" and the like. The insults don't stop at all as they obviously don't want mutants at their market.

Seeing Jocelyn taking to the air with only one of the girls, Angel scowls and, using the spell lent to him, maintains a camouflage even as he follows. However, as he flies over the alleyway and market, he drops packets. When they hit the ground, smoke issues from them, obscuring the area more and inciting the crowd even further!

The crowd continues to hurl unsults and vegetables at the group, but at the appearance of more mutants, there's more screaming.

"Get out of here! Mutants don't belong here!" and the like. The insults don't stop at all as they obviously don't want mutants at their market.

Seeing Jocelyn taking to the air with the girls, Angel scowls and, using the spell lent to him, maintains a camouflage even as he follows. However, as he flies over the alleyway and market, he drops packets. When they hit the ground, smoke issues from them, obscuring the area more and inciting the crowd even further!

Sure, Jocelyn may be trying to minimize the damage, but odds are there's still damage done. Thus...

Thus Laura still continues to move. She tries to position herself inbetween the demonic entity and the others, to try and take what ever damage is done by the flames that Jocelyn can't, or doesn't absorb.

Thus she's more than a bit distracted as the smoke bombs go off. And can't exactly move off to help Josie either.

The non-mutant girl screams (right in Jocelyn's ear), as she's yanked up into the air with her erstwhile friend, and beats on the x-student with tight fists. "Lemme go! Help! Help! Somebody help me!" Then, of course, she's deposited on the roof top, her erstwhile friend across the way. Scaly looks terribly confused, even hurt -- emotionally speaking. Her neck frills retract and, crouching forlornly on the rooftop, she curls in on herself in a miserable ball.

Siphoning off the heat has some effect, to be sure. The flames sputter before they reach the boys, though they may still singe the others. The dragonboy lets out a roar of frustration and leaps into the air even as the smoke packets explode on the pavement, blanketing the alley with a thick, yellow fog.

There's a very human scream as the dragon disappears in the smoke, but lands in the midsts of the human boys.

No gratitude. Pulling you out of a hot zone (literally!) and it gets her punched a few times by this girl. Fortunately, her enhanced durability means that the girl isn't having much of an effect on Jocelyn, with the exception of annoying her a little. She knew she probably couldn't stop all the fire, but she could at least stop some of it, and she was glad to see there was relatively minimal damage. That was before everyone decided that smoke was the way to go today.

Fortunately, being able to sense various energy signatures meant that Jocelyn could pinpoint people, and Dragonboy's extreme use of heat was making him a far easier target to go after. There wasn't much Jocelyn could do to the smoke herself, unfortunately. So, taking a deep breath, Jocelyn swoops down and attempts to get Dragonboy grappled by the neck even as she swoops back out of the smoke.

"You know, you're not helping the reputation any," Jocelyn comments. She's kind of hoping that if she can keep a choke hold on the guy's neck he'll either pass out or at least be unable to spit fire. She wasn't quite sure WHO the real enemy here was, but getting some of these people seperated seemed like the best plan to her.

It's been pretty obvious from the beginning, but even more so now that Josie really doesn't have a clue what she's doing. Coughing as she's surrounded by smoke, a moment later she's popping like a water balloon, water and her outer layer of clothes splashing to the ground. Water, thankfully, has no need to breathe. The water that is Josie flows quickly towards the scream and the sound of Jocelyn's voice.

Angel circles first to make sure that the girls are relatively safe before he flies closer to where the Institute-girls are. He's not going to get involved yet, but he does toss down a few more smoke bombs, this time aiming much closer to the Dragonmutant as if to confuse him as well.

At this point, the crowd has pretty much backed away, screaming, and there's the sound of sirens in the distance.

Don't feel bad Josie. In something like this, with no clear leader, is it posisble that anyone truly knows what they're doing.

I mean look at Laura. Sure she's probably singed now, but she's already healing. But with the smoke and the screaming, the clawed mutant is for the moment coughing. even as she turns to try and locate the dragon boy after his little stunt.

"Channel. Drain him dry!" is shouted by the female clone inbetween fits of coughing, before she tries to turn and do something, her senses hampered more by this smoke right now than most people could imagine.

The smoke sets the human boys to coughing. A couple splash through the water, one of them falling, in a bid to try to escape the alley. The fallen boy is bleeding badly. The others run as if the devil himself were at their heels -- which is, of course, very much what it looks like. Dragonboy also spashes through the water, his breathing not nearly so hampered by the smoke as the poor humans' is. His claws are bared and he swipes blindly through the fog, hoping to hit something, someone, anything.

The girls on the rooftops are relatively safe from everything at the moment and thus out of the way. The mutant girl's skin fades back to human pink, her mutations disappearing. She remains curled and weeping.

As Jocelyn swoops down on Dragonboy, she descends into the choking fog. Nevertheless, her sense of energy guides her cleanly to him and she succeeds in grabbing him. His automatic reaction, though, is to reach over his head, even as she squeezes his heavily muscled neck, in an attempt to pierce her head and shoulders with his talons. His tail lashes, and he starts backpeddling towards a brick wall.

Effing talons. Those were new, but Jocleyn hadn't seen those earlier. They're certainly going to leave some marks on Jocelyn, and even break the skin her shoulders, causing a few wounds to open up and start bleeding. However, years of fight training have Jocelyn continuing the attempt at the chokehold, attempting to fly upwards a little bit in the process. She'd love to do something about the injured right now, but she simply can't. She also focuses on keeping any of this guy's energy from being used against them by draining anything he attempts. Then she decides to try something and attempts to just drain most of the heat from the guy. She's hoping this will rapidly decrease his energy levels and make it easier to cause him to pass out with that chokehold. She's not going for a killing move here, just enough to knock him out.

Josie rises up as the dragonboy splashes through her, using waterpressure to grip the dragonboy's feet with all the strength of a fourteen-year-old girl, hoping to trip him up. Of course, to everybody else, it'd look like a blob surrounds the dragonboy's feet.

Angel finally lands near the injured boy and seems to make a show of cutting the palm of his hand to heal the seriously injured boy. He shouldn't be in too grave of a condition once he's done, but now there's a vague, winged figure in the middle of the fray as well.

And as she recovers just enough, there's a (SNIKT!*

Yeah. That's right, Laura pops her claws. And lets out a growl. That is before she leaps towards the so called 'dragon boy'. Sure she notices that... Blob. And she sure as heck won't try to harm Jocelyn.

And no, she won't go for the kill.

But still, she does try to stab him. That is if he doesn't stop struggling.

The human boy whimpers, but isn't sure how to react to the angel that has healed him. Not in the midst of the smoke and confusion. He still has his gun, and he holds it tightly in one hand, but he doesn't try to use it. He recognizes that the winged man is helping him.

Most of the other boys have since cleared the area. Dragonboy rams Jocelyn back into the wall -- hard. She smacks her head and is out for the count simply because it was a lucky hit. Shaking her off, the mutant staggers forward, slowed by Josie's attempt to grapple him. His demonic form is at odds with the angel in the fog, as the worst of it dissipates in a breeze. His focus now on freeing himself from the water, he doesn't expect Laura's attack, and staggers under the impact of her attack. "What are you doing?" he roars. "I'm one of you! Why are you protecting THEM?"

Unfortunately, water can't talk either, so Josie can't say anything to the question. So, she just keeps her grip on the dragonboy's feet for the moment, and adding pressure underneath his feet too, which might just make it seem like the ground is a lot slipperier to the dragonboy too.

Angel reaches to take the gun away from the boy before he glances at the others in the alleyway. He still stays quiet as it's the exercise for the students. He's been through this sort of thing before.

And here's where Laura says two words.

"No killing."

Then she comes to s stop, and motions with a claw towards the boy that fell, her eyebrow flickering for the briefest of instants as she lets her gaze flicker towards Warren.

"He's down. The others are no threat. You attacked after they were disarmed. You attacked with deadly force."

She raises her other claw towards the dragon boy as her feet claws pop with a *SNIKT* of their own.

"Do I need to say anything else?"

The boy lets Angel take his gun, though reluctantly. He reaches up to grab the mutant's shoulders. "Don't let them kill me," he begs. The winged mutant gathers the boy up in his arms and launches into the air, taking him to safety, letting the students finish the fight.

The dragonboy turns awkwardly to face Laura. "Traitor," he snarls. "They'd kill you without a second thought. They would have killed her." Futilely, he rips a taloned hand through the water, hoping that will make a difference, though it doesn't, particularly. Roaring out his rage, inhales a deep breath and spits fire at Laura once again.

Part of Josie keeps wrapped around the dragonboy's feet, but part stretches up as well, 'punching' an arm of water up at the dragonboy from below as he attacks Laura.

It doesn't matter if it's fire that comes at her. Laura doesn't move to try and dodge it. She doesn't jump. She doesn't even run.

Instead, it's almost as if she is embracing the pain as she just tries to walk towards the fire, and more importantly, its source. At times it may be a struggle, but still...

Still as she gets closer, she tries to stab him. This time in the /chest/. Not the heart, but still the best. At worst, he may now have a punctured lung, if the blow actually connects and does damage. In other words something that should give him trouble, a lot of trouble for now, but is treatable if he gets treatment soon. That is if the claw even connects.

As the water slams into dragonboy at the same time as X-23, his fire sputters out and his skin splits on the point of her claws. It doesn't quite pierce his lung, but it hurts him, to be sure. He swings at Laura, trying to connect with her, but the water girl at his feet is having some sort of an effect on his heat and strength.

As soon as Josie realizes she's having that effect, she stops trying to drag his feet and instead starts spreading up, spreading water over as much of the dragonboy's body as possible. If wet feet weakened him, what about a wet torso, and even arms if she can stretch that far?

That bow connects. And Laura even stumbles. But she tries not to be pushed too far away.

That is before she up and spins, trying to kick and slash with her left foot claw in a spot just above Josie.

Unlike the last blow, this one isn't mean to go too deep, and instead just give him a deep gash. All while she doesn't speak.

As Josie spreads her waterform over the dragonboy, his power is sapped and he starts to struggle. Laura's next blow connects and he falls to his knees, the water splashing up around him, sapping his fire.

There's not much fight left in him and, with only a couple more blows, he's fairly easily taken care of. It's only when he finally falls, however, that the simulation comes to its end, and the danger room is revealed in its neutral state once more -- Daytripper standing in its midst.

Josie, when the simulation ends, flows up into a humanoid shape and moments later is human again, wearing her training uniform. She grins as she glances down at it, "I really like this suit." Then she looks up to Daytripper and gets a more serious look, "Did we do ok?"

And as the simulation ends, Lauras claws are retracted. That is before she just turns, and silently stands there, looking directly at Daytripper.

"Unstable molecule material," Amanda says to Josie. "Best stuff ever. Thank Mr. Fantastic for it, if you ever see him. I think he's the one that made it." However, she could be really wrong about that. She looks around at the group. "You did okay," she nods. "There's room for improvement, but you did well -- particularly for your first time out, Josie. And you had good reactions, too, Laura."

She looks, of course, to where Jocelyn is slumped on the floor and moves to bend over her, murmuring a healing spell as she does. The girl will be fine in short order.

"Go get changed," she tells the other two girls. "We can debrief later."