2013-07-14 - X Marks the Shot

Emma stands next to the consoles in the Danger Room, legs folded as she takes a look at Forbes, her eyebrows arched as if she disagrees with some assessments completely. With a scowl she tilts her head to the side ever so slightly to hit the comunication button, her voice echoing through the Danger Room.

"Each and everyone of you down there are here for the specific reason you have been deemed unstable, in both body and mind, and as such, I was asked to devise a challenge that will... simulate stress and tension. You have been warned.", she starts, flipping another page and shaking her head.

"Miss Grey will be leading tonight. Follow her every order. She might be a bit shy but we have to break her in sometime. Miss Summers, you are here to learn, as I've been told your powers are quite elevated for someone your age. And Mr. Worthington... you know why you are here, if the skin is not clue enough. Any questions?" For the moment, Jean comes on down, and goes to cross her arms then, and lets her eyes scan over the area, "All right. Thsi is going to be a standard mission, with several randomized features in it to let the rest of us get a handle on how we work together. Rachel can choose to join in if she wnats, or if something is familiar to her." Jean wants her daughter to be an X-Woman someday, or be in Gen-X. Now, in full costume, Jean waits for the mission to start over in the Danger Room.

Rachel looks up toward the control room where Emma is hanging out and rolls her eyes. "My age?" she shrugs. "When did I become a child? " she mutters under her breath. She's hovering slightly off the ground, and she glances around. "So let's get on with this show, you are cutting into my shopping time."

That accusation, nay, blase declaration of instability has Warren ruffled. But for now, he'll play along. Dressed in his full Angel outfit, the blue-skinned, handsome mutant had his arms crossed over his chest. His wings gently swayed back and forth, and he nearly glared up at the control room. "Standard mission, Jean. Got it." Maybe a set of randomized features could prove a challenge. Warren was... antsy, tonight.

"I am not your mother, child. If you rather be shopping than learning how to defend yourself and your peers, then by all means, stick your head into the sand and go buy that cheap, ruined cloth you drape yourself with. As for what's the 'mission' is going to be, Miss Grey, that is up for me to decide, not for you. You are in charge of your fellow fighters. I am in charge of you.", Emma says casually, knowing he statement will get to the fiery Marvel Girl.

As Emma hits a few buttons up there, the room starts to change, and it soon becomes clear where they are: Xavier Institute, present time. The three of them are right in front of it, looking at the building, where many students they know walk by, from Noriko Ashida to Jonothon Starsmore and Paige Guthrie.

"Somewhere in the Institute we have a mole from the Reavers. Find him before he can damage anyone." Jean Grey lets out a sigh as the mission starts. "Wonderful." Of all the times not to have Rogue or Gambit. Jean focuses her mind then, and broadcasts a calming 'pulse' over to the students, "Everyone, please assemble in the main auditorium, we have something important we need to tell all of you about." Jean's thoughts are calming, and she's just giong to draw all the students to the main auditorium to 'tell' them what's happened. Of course, the idea here is that some of them will be behaving 'off' and make it easier to spot them, as well as hopefully having the rest of the students available for backup. She telepathically sends Warren <>

Rachel Summers glances to Jean and then to Warren. "I don't feel like being insulted twice today." she says calmly. She floats back behind them, not sure if she's going to stick around or not. she looks around as the Danger Room changes, she clinches her fist, Jean has a temper, Rachel has a temper and the whole lack of control thing. She glances at the students as the walk through. She stays quiet, and observant.

Warren Worthington heard Jean. Having frequently had telepathic conversations with Betsy, he replied, << Got it. >> For his part, he'll stay near the entrance to the auditiorium, for when the students pour in, he'll do his thing: he'll smile, greet, and reassure. He may be blue now, but he was still handsome. . o O ( Play the part, Warren. Maybe Emma's actually teaching us something instead of playing out some power fantasy. She's... certainly capable, ) he thought.

The students go about a bit confused, but calm, the image of Santo Vaccaro talking Cessily Kincaid into not going into a panicked state, along with Laurie Collins' lost eyes in the crowd, makes it clear the situation is, even if controlled, fragile at best. These are kids and they are almost to the last very scarred from their experiences as mutants.

As Jean scans the students, she feels a few strange signals. FIRST SIGNAL: Coming from the refectory, this psychic wavelenght is full of insecurity and rage, contempt. It feels muddled and angry, ashamed. SECOND SIGNAL: Coming from the Garden Maze this one exhibits a sound akin to being under the powerlines out in the field, a buzzing that makes Jean a bit dizzy. THIRD SIGNAL: The last psychic wavelenght is definetely sinister, guilt and anger painting it, some revenge and a sense of righteousness making it feel almost overbearing. It makes Jean feel sick.

The students react well to Warren, and they are almost all in the auditorium, but as things are with these young mutants, not all are there. The notable exemptions are Josh Folley, Glob Herman, Sofia Mantega and Kevin Ford.

Jean Grey maintains a calm presence as the students start to gather and come in in groups, and she sends telepathically to Warren << I'm picking up strange mental thoughts from the Garden Maze and the Refectory. When yo uget a chance, go ahead and check them out. >> She's wagering the sinister thing that she's picking up is whomever is their hidden infiltrator, but for the moment there's too much chaos in the air for her to narrow it. Jean half-smiles up and sends a thought to Rachel << So, care to see how I do over in Emma's murder mystery then dear? >> Emma is very good at what she does, after all.

While Jean can't read the minds fo each student at a time, she can try and narrow the scope of the emotions she's picking up, and try and narrow things down, and tune her speech to try and hit the tones to see if she would get a rise from them. she speaks up, her voice calm, "All right, students, I'm sorry to tell you that we're in a state of emergency now. Someone is here that is wanting to hurt many of you so we're going into lockdown until the state of emergency is over. >> Expecting the hate and fear to hopefully turn to smugness, from whomever has snuck in is one of the very pleased at the show they're going to do.

Worthington was a dedicated man. Dedicated to his business, dedicated to his girlfriend. His cause. And his job as a teacher. << Jean, I count four students missing. I'm going to do a quick scope of the campus, just to be safe. I'll be back in two shakes. But try not to break this link. We need to keep in touch. See if Rachel will help strengthen it. >> Telepaths. When they work together, it gets even scarier.

Rachel watches the students, but the only mind powers she is using at the moment is her telekensis to keep her a float. She listens to Jean's thoughts for a moment before using a bit of her telepathy right on back <>

As Jean starts to probe the students' minds for information on how to better deal with them, Marvel Girl can hear a voice in her head << Cheating into getting your students' attention and respect. I am impressed. Lets mark a star on your test, Miss Grey. >>. The students respond well to the manipulation, even if Rachel and Jean can both spot someone making fun of Anole for being frightened, and it's probably Santo.

Outside Warren catches a few things in his enhanced vision as he flies about: - At a distance, by the lake, he can see Josh Folley and Betsy Braddock sitting side-by-side, looking at the lake. Although their hands touch, it's their lips melding into one another that draws attention. It is a blatant manipulation of Warren's urges, but as he has shown recently, this might be enough to tick him off. - Sofia Mantega, the Wind Dancer, is staggering about, coming from the Garden Maze, trying to the mansion, holding her stomach, clad in her usually revealing clothes. She seems dizzy. - A dark figure is walking out of the Garden Maze and directing itself to the forest, fast, it's steps taking it much farther than they should. It is a superhuman individual, although he is covered in black clothes. Jean Grey is bemused up at Emma, and she responds hten as the simulation continues << There is no such things as absolutes, Emma. And in any case, I'm only scanning over surface thoughts. >> Jean's eyes flash as she continues, and takes a breath, smirking up at Rachel << Take some inspiration from Jubilee if you're looking to get back at her, dear. I'm sure she'll have somethig up her sleeve that would put me to shame. >> That sent to just Rachel, as covertly as Jean could.

Then, maintaining a passive link wtih Warren << Warren, what's your status? Do you need backup? >> for the moment, it seemed as if everyone over in the auditorium was behaving 'normally' as far as Jean could get from her quick skims fo surface thoughts. "So, we're going to ask everyone to remain calm, and to stay here until the lockdown is over." Then calling out lightly to Santo, "And please, if he continues that go ahead and give him a wedgie Anole."

Warren's eyes flashed. He'll deal with Josh and Betsy later. The mysterious runner was second in mind, but of paramount importance was a pretty lady in trouble. Mantega looked hurt. Wings folding, he dove, before they fanned out once more so he could slow his descent and land by Wind Dancer. "Sofa!" he declared, a hint of anger to his voice. But that quickly faded to concern. "Are you okay?" He shut his eyes for a moment, focusing, trying to put what he's seen into Jean's head - while trying very hard to exclude the scene of Braddock and Foley kissing.

Rachel on the other hand doesn't have problems scanning deeper. Her pupils turn white, her body glows as she starts to mind as many as she can. She's going to find what's going on. SHe is quiet and still, her body floating just slighty off the ground, her mind reaching through all the "students" here.

Rachel can feel it almost instantly, and it it is very, very real, as if these emotions are not even generated by the Danger Room, but by someone who has felt them very closely, or personally. There's despair and cluelesness, like a lamb being directed to it's butcher, in this person's mind, inocence quickly crumbling as they come to realize it's the end of their line, and they'll never become all that they thought they would one day be. In this particular case, Sofia Mantega will never make peace with her father, will never be accepted by him, will never dance in front of thousands of people and will never learn all about her powers. She will never lose her virginity to a boyfriend she loves, and she will never grow up to watch Laurie Collins become a woman completely out of her shell. Sofia Mantega, Wind Dancer, has just realized she is going to die.

As Warren flies down and looks at Sofia he realizes the girl is in deep trouble, those hazel-colored eyes wide and teary, one of them blood shot. She holds to her tummy for dear life, and Angel can see why: beneath her skin, bulging as if it had just been stuck there, there's a cubic object, making her skin protude and distend. From within, it beeps, and as it is frantically beeping, the intervals growing smaller, it draws one inevitable conclusion for him, and for all linked to him: this girl is going to blow in a matter of seconds. She screams in her native tongue to Warren, desperate, crying: "AJUDA-ME!", but it's obvious there's probably no saving this girl.

Emma Grace Frost says, "Emma is not pulling any punches, she never does. I guess... I should try it sometime." The sudden flash of emotions has Jean instinctively retreat herself mentally, only a thin veneer of self-control allowing her to maintain the mental link she has with Warren and Rachel. << HOLY! >> Jean's next move is to flash out with all her mental power then and put Sofia, if she can, artificial or not, in a state of peace. To disconnect her mind from her body, and deaden all the nerves, and put the girl in a sea of pleasure to allow her to float away as her body moves down hte course and expire, in the singularity or not. Even as her nose almost bleeds then as she stumbles, barely able to maintain herself upright as she puts a hideously weak telekinetic shield about the arena.

Well that just shakes the lesser Summers to her core, it knocks her literally to the ground. She looks toward the control room, the nback to Jean and watches her stumble. "I don't know if I want to play anymore." Rachel says. "It never changes, it's never going to change none of this is going to change." She picks her self up, clinches her fist, she leaps into the air and tries to rush to the girl as fast as her mind can take her.

She is weak. She deserves it. She didn't have what it took to take part in the next generation of evolution, of eventual perfection. She...

What?! That microsecond of... something, was ignored as Warren reacted fast - and brash. This was a matter of life and death. And a wounded tummy was better than being in pieces. He trusted Jean, trusted her ability to deaden nerves, to shut a mind down, even temporarily. He reached forward, newfound strength, and pressed his fingers against the cubicle object that made Sofia's tummy distend. Then he pulled.

Tears in his eyes from having to perform such a deed, he pulled, even if it made the girl scream. Even if he heard her skin tear. To get that bomb out of her. To save her life. And once he did so, he shot right up to try to carry the bomb, skin, blood and all, through Jean's telekinetic shield and into the sky out of harm's way, save his own. He had confidence. Better him than Sofia. He shouted as he flew, "Drop the shield and call Hank!!!"

Emma watches everything in her screen, her eyes focused on Sofia's face. She would have to compensate the girl somehow later for using her into something like this. As a warm tear runs down the telepath's cheek she quickly wipes it, frowning and berating herself. She should be over this. It was also her own doubts she could watch something like this stoically that Emma asked not to be watched while she performed the routine. It is only when Jean begins to undo Sofia's connections to her own body that Emma goes back to her training session, obviously angered about how Jean conducted herself. Typing a few things on the console fast, she changes a few parameters from the session. The objective was never winning or losing, saving or dying, it was always about teaching a lesson.

Sofia's face contorts back to her usual beautiful self, even if sweaty and a bit out of it, as Jean makes the connections she wants, allowing the venezuelan some respite despite her condition. It changes nothing when Warren fetches the object from within the girl, a scream of hers not of pain, but of terror, as a good part of her stomach is ripped by her teacher.

It's just as Rachel reaches Warren that the beeps stop, and both Angel and the young Summers can feel the heat of the bomb, a white ball of energy surging from it fast, engulfing both heroes and a big part of the auditorium. As the whiteness conquers each other visions, it's obvious that the bomb went off, but soon enough, they are back at the Danger Room, only this time, they are surrounded by bodies. Cessily Kincaid has melted and melded to the floor, her face a gigantic, distended rememberance of the jovial girl that once cheered her friends out of their depressions. Somewhere else there's a pile of charred rock where Santo once was, and adamantium claws where X-23 would have been. The rest are shadows marked on the floor.

"Congratulations. You have killed your students.", comes a voice from above. Emma is being particularly cruel and graphic in her lesson tonight, and it's very unsettling how she can go through this without showing her intent or emotion, at least not obviously. Jean Grey's eyes flash in rage, but seh recognizes what might seem as the pushing of buttons then as she stumbles back, and she takes a few, deep breaths, and resists the urge otherwise to vomit as she gets to her feet. "Well then, what would you have had us do otherwise then to do a faster search of the grounds then and scanning?" Inwardly, Jean is seething. But she's recognizing the point over of a lesson then, and now is not the time of it as she holds one hand over against the wall and forces herself to remain on her feet. "Warren, Rachel, you two all right?" Jean wipes a spigot of blood from her nose, and tugs down her mask as she rises up and closes her eyes, and waits for the next lecture.

Rachel quickly puts up a telekenetic sheild to protect her from the heat and then she glances looking up as they are back among the corpses. She's seen corpses, that don't outwardly phase her. Rachel glances up to the control room. "Yeah well it happens." is all she manages to say. Tonight she will go to the city and pretend to be twenty one and drink, yes she is going to drink tonight.

Warren Worthington found himself in the air, wings keeping him aloft. He slowly set himself down. He was looking down at the hand that had held the bomb - blood, bits of Mantega and all. When he lifted his head, his eyes were dark. "I could've taken that blow," he said coldly. "I could've gotten to an altitude where the kids would've been safe, and Sofia could've gotten medical attention. The only one who killed the students was you, Frost. You ended the session too early." His wings fanned out, high and wide and borderline threatening.

"You are right, Mr. Worthington, you designed this training, you knew exactly how was going to end, and what it was going to happen next. Listen to me when I say it, if you are willing to learn anything from what just happened.", Emma says with a pause, before going on.

"Sofia was doomed, and it was nobody's fault but Miss Grey's. She couldn't lead you, or give you proper orders. When given the opportunity of giving Miss Mantega solace or protecting her other students, she did what an incompetent girl would do, not a teacher and leader would do. She didn't even bother tasking the prodigious Miss Summers into raising a shield for the children. This behavior is unnacceptable."

Jean Grey's eyes flash as Emma tests her, "Emma, this could have only ended one way. That was the part of the design of it. This was for a lesson, not for training." She's getting up now, and manages to have her feet back up and under her. "And you're right. Thsi is a lesson I.." Not we, 'I'. "Ha dto learn." She won't thank Emma. But she gets the point.

Rachel Summers wants to speak but can't, her emotions though are just seething. She'll just float and stew...yes float and stew.

"You could've given us the satisfaction of the results of our actions. Other than just giving us the end of it after the fact. Does it make you feel good, Emma? Watching us react to our students die around us?" That was a low blow for Warren. "But... lesson learned." His wings folded with a snap, and his feathers slowly smoothed. "Criticism?" he said, voice crisp and businesslike.

"No, Miss Grey, I do not believe you understand my point. You could not safe Sof- Miss Mantega.", and some silence from the cabin up on the ceiling lingers, before Emma goes on "She was not going to survive. When you realize that, you must understand that the living students become your number one priority. What's most impressive is that the only person who did all he was supposed to was the man who had time to be jealous over his girlfriend. A man who seems to miss the point of this exercise entirely. I am just glad he is the one who least needs it. That is my criticism. Do you have any counter points or questions, or may I write this scandalous report?"

Jean Grey's eyes flash, and she repsonds lightly, "Emma, saving students is not about triage. it is not about deciding someone is about to die and not in any position to do things." She takes a breath, and then leans against the wall, bracing herself, "But you are right, I could have acted faster and more decisively, and given out better orders." She looks up at Rachel, seeing if Rachel is up for any degree of input or her 'daughter' wants time to herself.

Warren Worthington crossed his arms over his chest. Emma put him in his place, there. Miss the point? He didn't, really, but he did desperately wish for a do-over.

Rachel Summers looks up curously to the othe others before glancing to teh control rooom. "Is there anything else?" she asks curiously. "Or is our time done?" she thinks. "There's a great beahc program somewhere on there."

"I sincerely hope you are just being bullheaded right now, Miss Grey, or else I am afraid you are not fitting to be co-headmistress of a school for young mutants anymore than I was.", it's all Emma has to say for Jean, despite everything she -wants- to say to Jean, her mind in turmoil.

And then, there is more.

"These children, most of them, have no families, no future ahead of them unless we give them that. Every adult in this room knows exactly what the world is waiting to give them if we so let it. So yes, it will be a triage some time or another, I can guarantee you that. Both Mr. Worthington and you know it, and there is no point in arguing with me when you know I am right. The class is dismissed. I will finish things up here by myself." Jean Grey just cocks a brow over at Emma. Her self control has returned, and Jean puts herself through a series of breathing exercises then to calm herself. Rachel might be a subtle enough telepath to pick up the suppressed thought of 'Bitch' from Jean directed at Emma as Jean walked on out. "Emma, did you do this to test us and see how we would react, or to prove a point?" That's all she has to say now.

Rachel returns tobeing quiet, and starts floating for the door.

"We..." Warren lifted a hand to run his fingers through his blonde hair. "She's iterating that when it comes down to it, we need to be soldiers sometimes. And..." he frowned. "Soldiers have casualties." He's not sure how very X-Man he's sounding. "The Sentinels will kill us if they can. Sabretooth and others like him would do the same. The Red Skull, too, and the Reavers." As evidenced in the 'lesson.'