Aberrant: Children of Quantum Fire - Bodies in Motion

[Karren Gaunt]

Click to reveal..

OOC:Okay, so LL and I will kick this off with Cora and Pip meeting to try and settle out some of their emotional issues before potentially heading to the danger room, but that doesn't stop Maia and Butch from running into one another in the hall and conversing.

Cora sighed to herself. She should have had this conversation the day of Pip's Apothesis. Or the day after. Not now, two days of avoiding her most troubled sibling later. But there was no changing the past and at least she was here now. Or so the young metamorph told herself as she wiped away a frown.

'Pip? We need to talk. Can I come in?' she sent over the link to it's creator, a mental knock to go with the physical rap of her knuckles on the winged nova's door. The hallway was currently desserted aside from Coraline, and she waited for a response, knowing for a fact that Pip was awake and moving in there.

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany was a bit surprised to hear Cora's 'knock'. Having been a bit distracted with things the last few days, she hadn't noticed any particular avoiding going on. But Pip and Cora had never been close, so not having conversations with that 'sibling' wasn't really surprising.

A bit distracted with a hairbrush, she would get this down for herself without having to shave her head, "Yeah, come on in. Is something wrong?" Setting the brush down as she turns to face the door, Pip is happy to note that she didn't rip out too much hair this morning. A friendly and welcoming smile settles on her face, the new understanding that they really were all family and that didn't diminish her connection with her previous family made her more open and comfortable with the others.

[Karren Gaunt]

Knowing what she was walking into, Cora didn't *quite* melt into a ball of blind worshipful affection as she opened the door and set eyes on Epiphany, although it was an on-going effort to keep the invading pinkness from corroding her thought processes. The currently blonde-haired young metamorph gave a sickly smile and shook her head. "Not per say," she answered, closing the door behind her, "I'd just like to... apoligize for the way I've been acting, or rather not acting, around you. You really did a number on me with your Apothesis and that... scared me. Made me feel like I couldn't be one of the family's eyes and ears near you the way you turned my thoughts into mush. Totally acidentally, I know, I know, so *please* don't start apolgizing but I..."

Oh god. This was going wrong. Get to the point!

"You needed us, all of us, to get a grip on this, and I've been running away from that responsibility. I'm sorry, okay?" she managed to finish, fighting through the fog to get the words out. Gah.

[Butch_Cole]

Butch had been spending most of his free time watching whatever footage he could get of Elite battles or Team Tomorrow action. There was a massive amount of film that one could find on the OpNet, and Butch got his hands on as much of it as he could. Since their battle against the Motherhunters, his mind had begun to...move in new ways. His handle on tactics had increased, and he knew he'd be that much more deadly in combat in the future. But that didn't mean he could stop practicing and learning.

There were other new things to consider especially the modeling contracts the girls were now involved in. They would be out there and potentially in danger, so Butch was hoping they'd all get some training time in the Danger Room to run through situations they might encounter.

The other new thing to consider was the submarine that Alex claimed to almost be finished with. He was interested in seeing how things had developed in her drydock/work station, so Butch threw together a plate of sandwiches and fruits and cheeses to bring down.

He entered Alex's home for the past month or so, and didn't see his sister right away.

Butch called out, "Hey there Alex. I brought some eats if you're hungry. I was hoping maybe you could give me the ten cent tour of your baby here."

[SalmonMax]

Alex's lab was much the same as he remembered it. Large and open, with drawers, file cabinets and rolling office chairs strewn about. The counters had equipment from microscopes to diamond lathes. Most of the equipment Alex had either asked Traveller for, or had simply created herself...taking enough time between to recover the vitality that a permanant maniestation cost.

Rows of florescent bulbs cast the chamber in a stark white light and air conditioners sent puffs of cool crisp breeze hither and yon. Butch noticed several stacks of papers had been blown off their precarious perches and were now splashed over the floor. Seemed like she hadn't been in there for awhile. There was, however, a door on the far wall that hadn't been there before.

Through the door was a staircase shaped from rock. After a few steps Butch realized from the narrow, natural walls that this had probably once been a crevice that Alex had repurposed. It led him to another door. On opening it Butch was greeted with a puff of stale air and a look into what at first seemed to be madness.

First was the drydock and submarine. The sub looked to be maybe three quarters done. The back half of the hull had its decks and outer skin, but the bow was still just superstructure and modular equipment. It was lighter in hue than he'd expected...silvery, kind of like aluminum. Beyond that he had no way to judge what the internals of it were, those he could even see.

The cavern area adjacent to the drydock had smooth, polished walls and floor. Alex had used them as chalkboards, writing in her slightly loopy hand equations across the stone surfaces. Not just equations, Butch saw, but notes. Enigmatic, subtly ominous things like, new protocells can mimic nervous system but what about the SOUL??!! written and underlined next to a series of quantum field equations. Other notes fretted over things like 'the unliving node,' and 'the fine line between dead organic and living inorganic.' At one point the word 'immortality????' was circled next to another wall full of abstruse mathematics.

Finally, inevitably, his eye was drawn to the metallic blue object in the middle of the room, looking a bit like Tron's coffin. Sleek and rounded, like it might rocket away at any second, connected by tubes and pipes to the floor, the pod or whatever it was seemed to be the only thing in the room that was active. Lights blinked on the side, and the whole thing gave off a low-pitched hum.

One other thing it was giving off, in obscene amounts, was quantum energy. The whole room was baking in it. His node actually felt numb after a minute or two.

"Buh-uuuutch."

The sound was half-electronic groan, half human voice. It emerged from the pod, a grille he guessed was a speaker. When it spoke again it sounded more normal, and the voice was recognizable.

"I guessed it would be Warren that came looking first," Alex said mirthfully. "Your timing is good though. I'll be out in just a minute. The procedure's complete...I was going to run a few more contingencies, but that's just my paranoid side."

"So what do you think of our new home? I'll finish her up in a jiff once I'm done in here."

[Maia]

Maia had been out running again today, mostly out of boredom. She made her way inside, hoping instead to get one of her siblings to join for some friendly training. She knew Alex was right out, so instead she focused on trying to find Epiphany and Cora, who always seemed up for it.

[LydaLynn]

Pip's eyes went wide as Cora started talking. "I . . ." she didn't get to say anything as her sister interrupted with the plea of no apologizing.

"You, um . . . no, no, you're fine. I . . . I honestly didn't notice, that's horrid isn't it? I just . . . there was so much happening and everything's been so busy, I am so sorry. Not just . . . I wouldn't have, I . . . it wasn't anything I'd ever want to do to any of you, but . . . I'm really sorry I didn't notice. I'm so sorry you've been hurting, I didn't know. I . . . right, no apologizing, just . . . I . . . what can I do? I don't want to make you uncomfortable, not ever!"

Epiphany was standing now, having taking a step and a half towards Cora and stopped. Her hands fidgeted nervously with each other and her wings kept half flexing. She wasn't really sure what action she was stalling, but neither running nor hugging seemed appropriate, so she tried to stay where she was.

[Butch_Cole]

"Umm...Where do I begin?" Still holding the plate of food, Butch took a step closer to the metallic blue pod in the middle of the room. He could feel the quantum radiating out of it, so he stopped a few feet away from it. His head throbbed a little, but it only bothered him for a moment. "I'm gonna go ahead and assume-slash-hope that you haven't transformed yourself into some kind of metallic blue pod machine."

He really hoped she wasn't a metallic blue pod machine now, but one could never tell with Alex...

"The decor is, uh, interesting. I can follow a few of the equations, I'm proud to say, but the rest of it, well, the rest of it's a bit beyond me. The sub looks awesome from here," he continued. "I thought it'd be darker, but what do I know about making a sub. When you're done in there, you can explain some of the goodies you've equipped it with. I'm interested. Some of my recent, uh, studies have included some naval strategy and submarine tactics.

"Anyway, I don't know where Warren is, but I brought you some food, if you're not a pod machine and actually want to eat. Figured it'd be nice to pay you a visit and see if you wanted to maybe take a break and, I don't know, go for a walk around the island. Maybe get some exercise in the Danger Room. All work and no play, y'know?"

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline fought the invasive presense in her head with everything she had, not wanting to run away *or* surrender, visibly struggling to remain fully herself. Neither option would help her help Pip after all, but it was so hard and the regret in Pip's tone added sweet nothings to the whips of pink caressing her mind.

She sucked in a breath to answer, discordant chorus echoing her struggle as well as the real love beneath the artificial torrent, "That sounds... dangerously like apolgizing, Pip. I told you I know it was completely an accident of your change, right? Not your fault; nothing wrong. God knows I'll probably do worse when I pop."

The thwarted hug in Pip's posture cracked cora's reserve, and she went with it, crossing the gap between them almost faster than a non-mega perceptive could see or non-mega dextrous nova could react, engulfing her sister in a hug. "You'll tame this fire, Pip. You turned this fog down before," she whispered, voices shuddering a little in desperate mirth, "...Something I'd really, really apreciate if you could manage again before I completely mangle this apoligy if it's possible to make it worse."

[LydaLynn]

Absolutely dumbfounded, Epiphany hadn't realized she was being 'magnificent' again. Pulling it back inside herself, she returned Cora's hug. "I didn't . . . it just slips out. I'm so sorry. I don't know what it is, but it really is annoying. I can't think of any reason to be so . . . exuding, I don't know where it came from." Pip looked more than sufficiently chagrined. But she struggling not to apologize, or rather keep apologizing, for Cora's sake.

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline chuckled, not quite entirely in relief at the freedom to think again, and extracted herself from the hug to face her sister. "You were always the sweetest of us. I guess your Node is having a joke with you by making it literal, at least until one of us catches up and has the same reaction," responded the young metamorph only semi-seriously, "Important thing is that you realize that whatever powers you get, you own them and not the other way around. At least once you learn the trick to binding them properly."

She tilted her head to one side suddenly, blue-on-black eyes curious, "So I heard through the grapevine you got some speed in your change. True?"

[SalmonMax]

Alex's voice laughed warmly. "Me? A pod person? Oh, that stings. Time to put on way too much eye shadow and start cutting myself so I can feel alive."

"No, this is just a support mechanism. It kept me alive while I did the transitions. I couldn't do it all at one. Too intricate. Of course, I could do it NOW, but that's the whole point."

Up and down the pod, bolts popped open. A thick mist or fog spilled out as the seam down the side started to open up. The mist obscued the details of Alex's features, but the pod was lit from within, backlighting her through it. To say she'd changed would be a understatement.

She was taller now, and slimmer...and her proportions infinitely more flattering. Before, Alex had looked like a cute girl mechanic. Now she looked like a supermodel playing a cute girl mechanic in a blockbuster movie of her own life. Slim, shapely legs, wide round hips, narrow waist, and generous, gravity-defying chest.

Tantalizingly she started to step out of the mist...but even as Butch saw the first hint of bare leg, clothes were already weaving themselves into a jumpsuit all around her. Her face looked recognizably like Alex's old one...just 'optimized' somehow to change 'cute' into 'gorgeous.'

Her impish grin helped with that.

"I don't really eat food anymore...but thanks for the thought! As for the rest, I could go for a stint in the training room. It'd be nice to put this though its paces." She waved a hand at herself. "Just give me five minutes to finish up the sub and I'll be right there."

(OOC - Alexandra has gone from Appearance 3 to Appearance Mega-3 during Apotheosis.)

[Maia]

Maia quickly homed in on Epiphany, hard to miss her massive quantum signature, even through the stone walls. They were in Epiphany's room, so she did the polite thing and knocked, very carefully.

"Epiphany, Cora, you two up for a workout in the "Danger Room?"

[Butch_Cole]

Butch caught the faintest glimpse of bare leg as Alex stepped out of the mist. He was about to turn away to give her some privacy, when the jumpsuit began to form.

The Alex that he saw was...different from the one he remembered. She had always been cute, but now she was something else entirely. All of her features had become intensely...well...more than they had been previously. Butch tried hard not to stare, but it was very difficult not to.

"You're, um," Butch said, trying not to follow the smooth curves of her body from head to toe. When he looked at her face, the mischievous grin he found there was impossible to ignore. All he was able to say was, "Damn."

He smiled at her, and then quickly, sheepishly, looked down at the plate of food in his hand. With his other hand, Butch held the back of his neck, rubbing it a few times.

"Hadn't seen you in a while, and I figured I'd try and do something nice, y'know?" Then he looked back at Alex and shrugged. "Guess we'll have to find someone else to eat this. I know what it's like to not need to eat, so welcome to the club. Sometimes it's kind of nice to not have to worry about a nova-sized appetite."

The sub loomed large in the background. Butch looked closer at it and figured it wasn't too far from being complete. But what was it she said? Five minutes?

"I'm gonna hang around and watch you if you don't mind. I mean, watch you finish up. I, uh, I'd like to, y'know, keep you company. While you work."

Easy, Butch, he thought. Take a breath and quit being a damn fool...

"What I mean is, if you think you can finish this in five minutes, well, that's pretty impressive, and I'd like to see it happen. And then we can go see what else it is that you can do. Any ideas on that front or is it all new and unknown to you?"

[LydaLynn]

"I . . ." Epiphany's answer is interrupted by Maia's knock. "Come on in Maia." She called. Turning back to Cora, "Yeah, more than I know what to do with. I'm only not black and blue because the fur hides it and I've started using the eufiber as knee and elbow pads."

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline's smile turned wry and wistful, recalling her own troubles growing up and the first painful flights her Father had oh-so-carefully led her on and let her learn that gravity was only an option for Novas like them if she were careful and quick, her Mother leaving her to stop whining and untangle the brush that she was fully cappable of doing herself with naught but a stern word of encouragement and a hug when she emerged victorious over an hour later. And that had been when she was five, and Uncle Shen but a distant encounter in the future on the day the Mother Hunters turned her tiny, comfortable world inside out and into tiny bloody pieces. Coraline may have been as a mote before Pip's current power she suspected, but *this* she could help in. She knew that much.

"We'll take care of that. If there's anything I know, it's speed and how to handle it, knowledge I earned one crash at a time," she spoke aloud, one eye on the door for her other sister's entrance, "Some of that should rub off with an hour or two a day in the danger room until I run out of things I can teach you."

[SalmonMax]

Alex grinned wider. "My path to Apotheosis wasn't randomly subjecting myself to physical and emotional stresses, like Warren and Pip," she said. "My new self was designed, from the ground up. I know exactly what I can do, in theory. But the fun comes in seeing it all in action."

She looked at the incomplete submarine hull for a moment. "Now, lets get this thing out of the way."

Around the edges of the drydock were piles of material...long metal bars or girders by the look of them. Coils of thick copper wire. Bins of other, less identifiable materials. Alex went among those piles, close enough to reach out and touch the submarine...which she did.

Butch watched as the 'skin' of the submarine hull started creeping forward, stretching itself over more of the superstructure. At the same time, Alex reached out and with her other hand touched one of the girders...which began to flow along her arms from the stacks of metal onto the submarine itself, lending its mass to the whole. Occasionally she'd pause and touch one of the other materials, sending rivulets of writhing matter pouring into the unfolding creation to assemble instruments and wiring and workstations within.

"Trying to work as much by just reshaping matter as I can," Alex explained as she worked. "Saves me a lot of effort if I don't have to create it ex nilho. Though there were pieces that I did have to...the reactors for example, needed some materials I couldn't get easily."

The skin of the hull crept up over the 'nose' of the sub and closed off. Alex walked quickly between another few bins, making some finishing adjustments, then nodded, dusting her hands off.

"It's enough for now. Seaworthy, completely functional. Some of the bells and whistles still need finishing, but that's something I can do while we're underway. Now..."

She backed away and cracked her knuckles. "Make the trunk power lines superconducting..."

Butch felt a peculiar sensation. An odd 'crawling' sensation under his skin, like an ant colony had taken residence there.

"And augment the outer hull's ductile and tensile strength..." Alex muttered. She seemed oblivious to the weird side effects of whatever she was doing. "And...sonar absorbent..."

A dark spot appeared on the silvery hull and rapidly grew, like a tumor, until it covered the entire submarine in a dark charcoal grey color. Watching that spread, Butch realized how BIG the sub really was. Nearly two football fields in length and a good seventy-five feet wide, there was room on the broad, flat deck for several basketball games to be played at once, along with some tennis matches.

"There!" Alex said brightly. "That oughtta do it for now. The rest I can finish once we're out on the sea. So! Danger room then?"

[Butch_Cole]

"You were able to control your change? That's pretty awesome. And here I was all proud of myself for making my brain just a little bit better."

He stood in awe while Alex worked. The sub was massive, more gigantic than Butch thought it would be when they first discussed creating it, but it really was finished in five minutes! Knowing Alex though, how could he have doubted her?

But what was that weird feeling he had under his skin? He turned his hands over and looked at them and at his arms, but he didn't see any outward indications.

"I'm ready whenever you are. A good workout seems like a great idea," Butch said. Then he continued, hesitating at first, "When you were working, I felt this kind of crawly sensation under my skin. Was that something you were doing?"

[SalmonMax]

Alex gave Butch a probing look, then said, "Probably a side effect of me messing with the quantum information in here. Since novas are sensitive to quantum effects...yeah, that must be it." She shook her head. "Nothing to worry about. You're just sensing small field fluctuations as they interact with the fields making up your body. Pretty normal for someone standing right next to a major reality hack."

"As for my change, it's not so much that I controlled it. I made it happen. I designed the new me. See?"

She went over to a spot on the wall where there was a complex diagram of...something. "This is me now. What I'm made of. I've altered my body's composition." With a nod at the pod, Alex added, "That's why I was in there. I couldn't change my whole body at once. I needed machinery to keep me alive as I changed myself. Guess that's done now though..."

The pod dissolved into nothingness.

Alex grinned at Butch. "I tacked on all kinds of goodies, but the main benefits are that my new nervous system is over fifty percent faster and more accurate than my old squishy one. Plus, it operates between distributed nodes, not centralized, so it's much harder to damage. I solved the problem of inorganic quantum nodes too, and installed the basic farahcyte-equivalent component in the base design for my protocells...which means that my whole body is basically one big node, spread through every cell. You have no idea how sensitive I am to quantum perturbations now! I can see the information states of particles directly...change them however I want. Like with the sub. I made the copper in the wires into a high-temperature superconductor. It's still copper though; I just modified its electrical resistance. Altered just one piece of the information that defines it."

She paused abruptly, and laughed.

"Okay, if we're going to go, we'd better go. Before I go off on another dissertation about how awesome I am."

[Courier]

Warren had walked into the other end of the lab and had been watching slack jawed. Thought I sensed stuff going on. Wow. Alex is done filling out the sub, and herself. Did I hear that right? Planned? Drifting towards the big 'A' I knew. Planning is something very new.

He walked over and commented, "Alex. Wow. The sub, the new you, and the whole planning it part."

And that makes three. Alex might be a step or three ahead in terms of controlling her powers too. Probably a good thing.

[SalmonMax]

Alexandra threw a grin Warren's way. "Well there you are. I was wondering when you'd feel what was going on down here. And I'll come clean on the planning part. The fact is that I probably started going through Apotheosis before I did it. Pushing my powers to get the sub done sparked it, is my guess. That's when I had my big eureka moment and did all this..."

She waved a hand at the crazed scribbles covering most of the cavern walls.

"I'm pretty sure I'd never have thought of replacing my entire body with nanotech...and if I had, I'd have dismissed it immediately as impossible. At best, I'd have thought it a way to wind up with a robot that thinks its the original." Alex smiled and tapped her temple. "But I found a way around that too."

"Anyway, I think I get why you were staring after you came back from that star. It does take some getting used to, even if what I see now isn't the same as what you see." She looked around briefly.

"This has opened up so many possibilities. For all of us."

[Courier]

Warren nodded and said, "Oh yeah. Serious understatement. I had no clue the big 'A' would be like this. The mother hunters don't look as intimidating any more. Pretty soon, game over, we win."

Warren looked Alex up and down with his full range of senses, and then he asked, "Did you include some combat potential in that new body?"

[SalmonMax]

"I've always had combat potential," Alex points out. "I've never been as soft as you guys seem to think. But now even less so. Not only have my powers increased, letting me create stronger armors, but my body itself is less vulnerable to damage. And by 'less' I mean 'a lot less.' In fact, Butch and I were about to visit the Danger Room. I'm kind of eager to see how well I did."

(OOC - I don't know offhand what senses Warren has, but if you tell me then I'll try to give some idea of what he sees.)

[Maia]

Maia entered and smiled to the girls. "I'm not interrupting anything am I?"

She looked to each of them and nodded. "I was looking for some training partners, since going alone is really boring."

[Butch_Cole]

If he were being honest, Butch would have to admit to being jealous of his Apotheosized siblings. Sure, he could get competitive with the best of them, but what he really wanted was something else. Warren hit it pretty close when he said that the motherhunters were looking less intimidating. What Butch wanted was to be something even more terrifying to the bastards who hunted him and would hunt others.

No drastic changes had happened for Butch yet. Since the rescue of Eric and Zia, he had been spending most of his free time either studying tactics and strategy or else he was thinking about...well, how he was thinking. While it was true that his mind had become...better and his ease with tactics grew, the increase was nothing near as marked as that of his Apotheosized siblings. He wondered what would happen when it was his time for the change...

"I'm eager to get a workout, too," Butch said. "Let's see what kind of hell we can raise."

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany smiled at Maia, "I think you're okay. Cora seems to have been thinking in the same direction. You know I'm not the biggest fan of training, being generally squishy, but I'm game for at least trying to get my speed under some kind of control."

[Courier]

Warren let himself become absorbed with observing Alex, there was a lot to process. After a moment he said, "Not liquid metal because you're not liquid, but the effect is similar. T1000 on steroids with other powers."

Quote:

"I'm eager to get a workout, too," Butch said. "Let's see what kind of hell we can raise."

Warren said, "Huh? Oh! Yes."

[SalmonMax]

Alex grinned, and held up her hands. Her fingertips shimmered, and extended outward several inches, tapering to long, razor sharp points.

"Close enough."

Her hands returned to normal as she nodded at Butch. "Let's go."

She set a casual jogging pace out of the drydock out to the lab, and then towards the 'danger room.'

[Karren Gaunt]

Originally Posted By: LydaLynn

Epiphany smiled at Maia, "I think you're okay. Cora seems to have been thinking in the same direction. You know I'm not the biggest fan of training, being generally squishy, but I'm game for at least trying to get my speed under some kind of control."

Coraline chuckled, blue-on-black eyes narrowing in amusement, "Pip, any of us who are stupid enough to full contact spare with you or Warren is asking to Apothesize ourselves in a bout of accidental friendly fire while you get all your new powers under control. But yeah, let's go run you through a few of my old Danger room routines if the room is aviable and take you topside for some 'tag' if it isn't. Agreed?"

'I'd apreciate if you test her first, Maia, while I offer pointers. She outflies you, I'll take over and show her some *real* flying,' she added over the link to her two sisters as she grinned in antisipation of the games to come. Coraline *loved* flying.

[Maia]

It's not too hard to outfly me sadly. Maia sent back. It was something she loved doing, but while she had alot of raw talent, she wasn't as skillful as she'd wished to be.

She looked over to Epihpany and smiled as they made their way down. "Cora you want to program one of your light routines in? We can start simple and and move up to the more advanced stuff."

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany sighed as she walked with her 'sisters'. This was not going to be fun. She just hoped they'd try not to laugh at her and that the bruises wouldn't show too much.

"If I thought I could get away with just staying safely away from combat my entire life, I'd never put myself through any of this. I don't know what you two find so fun about training, unless it's watching me fall on my rear repeatedly."

[Karren Gaunt]

Seeing that they had gotten to the armor-plated Danger Room doors with their safety patterned black-and-yellow paint scheme and that the room wasn't aparently in use, Coraline gave a nod to Maia and a reassuring grin to Pip. It had been a while since she'd done anything that basic, most of her off-hand drills beyond anything she'd want to throw at her fledgling Swift of a sibling...

"Okay. You two head in there," her chorus of voices confirmed semi-distractedly as she gave the security pad it's palm and eye scan, the light turning green to acknowledge her identity and authorization, "I'll be up above."

The doors slid open on powerful hydraulic pistons, revealing the large open chamber with it's checkerboard of extensiable blocks on ceiling, floor, and walls. A small, locked door on the imediate inside-left of the main entrance led up to the control room. There, Coraline started punching in a password on a keypad next to it, not wanting to ruin Pip's first trials by triggering Alex's security precautions. Some of those were very... creative.

Click to reveal..

Hope I'm not reaching, but what self-respecting metahuman training facility doesn't have a double or triple-layer security system to keep people from hurting themselves or others with it?

[SalmonMax]

"Hup," Alexandra said as she, Warren and Butch headed for the Danger Room. "Looks like someone else has the same idea we do. One sec."

She closed her eyes and tilted her head, accessing a wireless node in the corridor, then following the network to the danger room systems. There the passcode told her who was in the control room, and the cameras gave her several views of the others.

"Coraline, Pip and Maia will be joining us," she remarked.

In the control room, Coraline started bringing the danger room controls online, and found a curious screensaver in place on the main monitor. It was a brief animated loop of Alex pointing two fingers at her eyes, then pointing at the camera, so she seemed to be pointing at whoever was watching. The caption read, "I've got my eyes on you, Coraline. @_@"

Back in the corridor, Alex chuckled and said, "Go easy on Pip...she's a bit nervous."

They were almost there.

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany took a deep breath and stepped through the door. She could count on one hand all the times she had willingly entered this room without Traveler's express direction. The others seemed to find the whole thing fun, Pip didn't. Nor did she want to train for eventual combat, knowing entirely too intimately what it felt like on both sides of a combat and being haunted by the ghosts of the memories of those who didn't survive.

Giving Maia a smile that seemed a bit green under her fur, Pip turned to face one of the cameras, "Okay, now what? And that's not an invitation to throw a flyswatter at me or anything like that!" Bracing herself to dodge, she waited, hoping for a voice of direction instead of a moving wall or other sudden obstacle.

[Butch_Cole]

Butch was the first one into the control room with Alex and Warren close behind. He saw the blond girl standing at one of the consoles. When she turned around, he saw the eyes and recognized her as Cora.

"Hey, Cora," he said, smirking. He ran his hand over the close-cropped black hair on his head. "Blond looks good on you. What's going on in here? I heard something about Pip giving the room a whirl. I thought she was usually against this kind of thing. I know we were all looking for a workout," he said motioning at Warren and Alex. "Oh, and Alex is a bit different, but I bet you can see that. Anyway, maybe we could all get in there. I think we could all do with a little extra training. Keep the edge sharp and all that."

[Karren Gaunt]

Cora pushed a button as she heard three of her siblings come up the stairs into the control room behind her, and the Danger Room responded to her instructions. In a *whir* of servos, a circular jogging track formed from the panels by rising slightly to indicate it's course. Above, a multiple image projector emerged from the ceiling and the lights dimmed to half-normal intensity. The projecter hummed and a dozen numbers from one to twelve glowed at the center of a dozen randomly placed tiles. 'Level One', Cora imagined it, a test of raw speed and reflexes. The variable terrain and paintball shooting robots would come next after...

The arrival of Butch, Warren, and, far more importantly, Alex put a hold on any explaination for Pip. What she was seeing was obviously Apothesis, that was clear, but... It was just plain weird even for the young metamorph. Looking at Alex was like looking at... at a... quantum robot rather than a nova, a fact she confirmed by kicking her vision up and down the electromagnetic spectrum far as it would go. Yet... The feel was right so...

"Umm, congratulations, Alex," she recovered somewhat, "Just running Pip through a few basic speed drills and some tag to start getting her new powers under control and confidence up. Then we'll kick this room up high as it can go to see if it can give you and Warren a challenge anymore, okay?"

[Maia]

Maia chuckled. "Nothing that bad I promise. I told her to go easy on us. You don't come in here much." Maia reached out, stretching, and then nodded. "You may as well stretch and limber up first Epiphany. You're going to wish you had."

Maia looked ready for anything. She spent alot of time in here, compared to most of the others. With Cora at the controls, Maia expected alot of flexibility to come into play, and hoped Epiphany could keep up.

[Butch_Cole]

Cora turned and looked at the novas who had just arrived in the Danger Room, but seemed temporarily off-guard. Then she spoke:

"Umm, congratulations, Alex," she recovered somewhat, "Just running Pip through a few basic speed drills and some tag to start getting her new powers under control and confidence up. Then we'll kick this room up high as it can go to see if it can give you and Warren a challenge anymore, okay?"

Butch took a step over to one of the monitors and saw Pip and Maia in the Danger Room, ready for action.

"Man, Cora," Butch said. "You sure know how to make a non-Apotheosized nova feel a micrometer small. I didn't realize the Danger Room was only for those of us gifted enough to reach the next level."

He held his hands up. "I was hoping to get some time, too, but I guess this is Special-Novas-Only day here. I'll wait my turn like a good plain ol' second gen."

When Cora caught his eye, he winked at her.

[SalmonMax]

Alex shrugged uncomfortably. She realized Cora and Butch were teasing, but there was enough truth in their words that she couldn't just dismiss it all.

"To be honest, the danger room was designed mostly as a playroom. It's like a jungle gym for novas. None of us were ever in 'danger' in it. The robots and turrets will be completely ineffective against me right now...probably the same with Warren and Pip. I mostly just want to see how bad I can make them blow up. Compared to previously, I mean."

[Courier]

Originally Posted By: SalmonMax

"...None of us were ever in 'danger' in it. The robots and turrets will be completely ineffective against me right now...probably the same with Warren and Pip. I mostly just want to see how bad I can make them blow up. Compared to previously, I mean."

Warren said, "I'm fully defensive for the duration. I think... well it's complicated." Talking about timelines and the infinite 'now' in English would be a mess, especially since I'm still trying to get my head around all this.