Aberrant: Children of Quantum Fire - Bodies in Motion

[Sunstar]

"I'll head to the danger room later. In the mean time, a good soak will do me nicely, sis." She said shifting her Eufiber back into a bikini and heading towards the hot spring. She waves to Pip as she gets in. "Heya, Pip. What's up?" She said with a smile on her face.

[Courier]

The future Warren nodded to the original and said, "It's time."

The original said, "What, now?"

The future replied, "Yeah. You don't finish watching Cora's session. You shift your shirt and then go. You're about to find out it's annoying to not have free will. I'm on pin and needles, afraid I'll forget my line and change things."

The original paused and considered.

The future Warren said ironically, "You're thinking about changing the colors on your shirt before you go. Thing is you don't do that."

The original nodded, shifted his eufiber to say 'Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure' and then vanished.

Relieved to be free again and more disturbed than he wanted to admit by the experiment, Warren went back to watching Coraline dance through paint.

[LydaLynn]

The skin under Epiphany's fur had begun turning a rather spectacular shade of purple over her shoulder as she soaked. However, the water had relaxed her so much, Pip had forgotten the state of her body. With a grin for her sister, "Hey Marina. It's good to see you. Nothing much up on my end. I gave the Danger Room a whirl and it rather quickly informed me how very much I still need to learn. How was your swim? Discover any new aquatic species or underwater treasures?"

[Karren Gaunt]

The countdown for 'lunatic mode' hit zero as the time counter hit one minute's survival time. The gaps multiplied, three, four in every pattern, but new paintball turret emerged to fire special transparent paintballs into all but one of those gaps, adding an element of further needed choice and perception to the chaos. The lights began to strobe from pitchblack to blinding bright irregularly, waves of light and darkness to strain Coraline's ability to understand and sort the incoming risk.

She went ultra sonic in response, jerking rather than flowing through the safe gaps in sharp, little sonic booms.

The first paintball caught her on her right wings at one minute and twenty seconds into the drill. Danger room cameras caught and reccorded the hit after a few seconds to extend and decompress the footage that they were taking.

The second caught her in the chest one and half minutes later. The control screen flashed red on that hit and the danger room stopped firing after one final long clarion warning. Coraline buzzed to a stop with a final crack of deceleration, shaking from quantum expenditure and adrenilien, rubbing the stain on the front of her eufiber that 'killed' her with alien finger tips. The turrets and walls around her looked like some pointelist had spent years going over them to no sane end.

'You're right, Alex,' the young metamorph commented over the link to those in the control room, superhumanly pretty features restoring themselves as she released one of the quantum 'knots' at the back of her head, 'This is a 'jungle gym'. But one where we can play out worst case scenarios without them being worst case scenarios. How long did I have before being killed for you guys to rescue me?'

[SalmonMax]

"Jesus, it was a joke Cora!" Alex snapped irritably. "I don't engage in casual conversation with the expectation that I'm going to be cross-examined, or every little quip dissected and treated like it's a doorway to inner truth! I know exactly what the danger room is, and what it's good for. And if you'd really been in trouble, and I was really there, I'd have protected you."

[Karren Gaunt]

"Sorry. I was just asking if I beat my old record of 3 minutes and two seconds," Cora apoligized through her mouth as she made sure everything was back in place, abashed but not really through the afterglow of flight at full speed, "You know what I'm like after sessions like this. God, I wish I could do a straight run above ground without painting us on every radar in the world..."

The last was said more to herself than anyone else as she set down on the paint splattered floor, dodging drops of paint as they fell from the ceiling, a big, big smile on her face.

[SalmonMax]

Alex relaxed and checked the time. "Beat it by...three seconds. Nice work. And pretty soon it won't matter if you're spotted by radar anymore. We'll be in our mobile base, and they won't be able to figure out where we are anymore."

[Sunstar]

Originally Posted By: LydaLynn

The skin under Epiphany's fur had begun turning a rather spectacular shade of purple over her shoulder as she soaked. However, the water had relaxed her so much, Pip had forgotten the state of her body. With a grin for her sister, "Hey Marina. It's good to see you. Nothing much up on my end. I gave the Danger Room a whirl and it rather quickly informed me how very much I still need to learn. How was your swim? Discover any new aquatic species or underwater treasures?"

"It was pretty good this time around. Didn't find anything though. Starting to think either I've tapped out the area or I'm getting rusty." She water elemental relaxed with her sister, fiddling with some of the water to look like pac-man and some dots. "So how's things with you Pip?"

[Courier]

Warren said, "Yep. Three minutes and five seconds, a new record. Well done Cora."

Warren checked her quantum emissions. Had her work out been enough to trigger the big A? Didn't look like it. Apparently her 'death' hadn't been traumatic enough.

Implying that in real life with her life really on the line maybe it would have. Maybe a good refreshing swim in the sun would help. Or maybe his idea would look more brilliant if it'd worked more than once.

Warren looked over the idea again, decided he still liked it but he could wait. If the potential divers went all 'A' by themselves then well and good. If they didn't then the sun would still be there waiting.

[LydaLynn]

Epiphany smiled and watched the water pac-man, "With as much time as you've spent in the deep blue around here, I can't imagine there's anything left to find that would be worth finding. Once we're on the ship and out and about you'll likely start finding all kinds of stuff again."

Pip had always been more at ease with just one of the 'siblings' than with the group of them. And Marina's calm nature made her one of the few she could talk with and not feel completely self-conscious. "For me, aside from trying to figure out this whole new powers thing that comes with Apotheosis and trying not to warp everyone's minds around me, I'm not doing too badly. It's hard, I still have no idea why I 'popped' first. I'd have been just as happy not going through this for another ten years. Everyone else who's hit it seems to be full of euphoria with the new powers, but I just don't get that. Mostly I'm trying to sort out how much I have to deal with it and learn to control it, and how much I should take a terrified step away from the edge these abilities are putting me on."

With a heartfelt sigh, "And no one seems to understand why I'm not doing flips about having more power. I wish sometimes that my powers were more like everyone else's, physical or intellectual. I honestly terrify myself. But what's even more frightening, what if our opposition has someone like me, someone who doesn't have qualms about what it does to a person to warp and twist their minds. I mean, I have a shield that I can put up for us, but I don't know how strong it is, how much it can actually take. All we need is to run into someone who can dominate minds and knows how to get around me to start puppeting Alex or Warren or any of us."

Epiphany shook her head, "I don't want to rain on anyone's parade. They're all so happy and full of a feeling of invulnerability with their new powers. Me, I'm just scared. . . And that was way more than you asked for. I'm sorry. I've just been sitting and stewing in my thoughts too long I think."

[Karren Gaunt]

Coraline would have been privately insulted to know that Warren thought she might Apothesize from a non-leathal danger room drill. She was more stable than *that*. Fortunately for him, she couldn't read thoughts.

"Well, I'm done," she called happily as she padded back to the control room, "You want to go next, Darrik?"

[Butch_Cole]

Butch shrugged to Darrik's comment and sent him a message over the link: I'm not gonna rain on any more parades for now. I think for now it's ok to have a good time in the DR before the shit really hits the proverbial fan. But you're right about the elder 1st gens and the other 2nd gens.

Alex's run was instructive to watch. While she was incredibly fast and perceptive, there was something else that she was doing. Butch slowed the video a few times to figure out exactly how she had succeeded to such great effect. The success seemed to be predicated on Alex always thinking...beyond the computer's next move. Butch found it very interesting.

Then, Cora began her run. Butch watched her performance very closely on the monitor, but it became quite difficult the faster she moved. And Cora could move fast. Thankfully, the monitor program could slow things down so that he could follow. The turrets moved to track the speedy metamorph, and Butch was able to instantly analyze the situation. As he watched Cora get hit in the wing for instance, Butch knew that the paintball would have missed wide to the right if she had closed the distance between her and the turret five seconds earlier. Then, when she was struck in the chest, the killshot or damn near it, a minute and a half later, Butch would have suggested that, given the increased number of paintballs flying at her at the time, the greatest chance of surviving involved taking a hit to the wing and returning to the ground to better dodge shots aimed at areas that could put her down immediately.

The brief, tense exchange with Alex worried him for a moment. Cora seemed on edge. Something had changed. He'd ask her about it, but not right away. Instead, he waited for her to return to the control room.

"Nice run, Cora," Butch said. "Maybe later on we can take a look at the footage together and do a danger room run post-mortem."

He paused. "Pun unintended."

[Quantum Fire]

At this point Shen spoke up again, with a slight smile on his face. "When your training is further along, Coraline, my dear, I think you should try this again, I suspect you can improve your time significantly at that point." When the others turned to look at him directly in question, though he was fairly certain that the smarter ones had already made the connection almost instantly. "I have taught a number of you the basic's of martial arts, but Coraline is now going to start learning some of the more intricate and subtle aspects of specific martial arts from me, to better learn the nature of balance and flow in all actions.. " He glanced at the others present. "I am teaching T'ai Chi Chuan to first, we shall go from there."

He chuckled softly at a further thought. "In essence, in baseline terms she's enrolled in her major, at least it will not take as many years as it would for someone without her natural talent and capabilities." It wasn't that Cora was the best combatant among the children, it was more of a matter that in his view, she needed this training most, that he would be able to spend more time with his foster daughter this was was a simple bonus in his mind... and there were other considerations, some of which he didn't share with the children, but then a precognitive with his limitations had to be careful about what he did and didn't share.

[Toby Lupin]

"Good luck, Cora." Darrik remarked to her with a slight smile, taking Butch's words into consideration. *We need to discuss plans to take out us and our siblings... I mean from an enemy's perspective. So we really know what could undo us.* He walked out to the area with a grace that had been certainly increased by Apotheosis, and the natural seductive nature of his movements had been heightened incredibly, hips unconsciously swaying. "I suppose I'm up... but-" he remarked- lips furrowing... "It's my combat skills that need brushing up on."

He raised a hand, looking to an open space. "Stand back... should be just me for now." Once the siblings had given him room, Darrik focused his powers. And blackness seeped and coalesced around the open space, rising to the surface. It formed into a 35-foot tall giant demonic looking beast which loomed over Darrik and observed him. "Fight me," Darrik said as a command, though a strange one it might have seemed.

It roared in response, and struck with mighty fists that shook the ground. Over the next few minutes, it was clear that Darrik was faster, and though his attacks did little injury, his plan was clear. Wearing the monstrosity down with his fists and strength copied from Maia, he circled again. Given already known powers, like his shadow blasts, he could have ended this earlier. But he wasn't fighting to win, but to learn.

Appropriate senses should indicate the use of dark matter, shadows... etc. :evil:

Darrik's new Quantum Construct and Force Field in use... I'll break the fighting into a two-post sequence, so reactions can occur.

[Karren Gaunt]

Glad none of the others had made a big deal about her, well, she hadn't thought of it like that yet, but perhaps it was a 'major' like Baselines called it, Coraline sat down next to Butch, inviting him to begin dissecting her performance with a gesture at some of the images of her hits still frozen on the screen. It would be nice if the training did help her like Uncle Shen said. Three quarters of safe flying was cornering smoothly, and if she could manage that better she could avoid some of the more frantic evasions...

She kept one black-sclera'd eye on Darrik's fight against his own construct. Now she had no idea what Apothesis brought internally, god knew that and she wasn't equiped mentally to speculate productively, but far as she knew, there was only so much harm a Nova's own offensive powers could do to it's source. Ask later.

[SalmonMax]

Alex sat back and shifted her attention between Darrik's fight and two displays...one of which had scrolling data which looked fairly technical, the other was replaying sections of combat footage in rapid sequence. She yawned and shook her head. "I still yawn," she muttered. "I don't even need oxygen anymore, but I still yawn because I remember yawning. Stupid."

[Butch_Cole]

Darrik's idea was a good one, and Butch would download some past footage of his siblings' excursions in the Danger Room. Figuring out how an enemy would approach them could only help them better figure out the proverbial chinks in their armor and patch them up before they got someone hurt or worse.

When Darrik began his sequence, Butch made note of what seemed to be a new ability thanks to Darrik's Apotheosis. Whatever the substance his sparring partner was made of, Butch wanted to know more about it. He ran an analysis program and would check the data later, shifting Darrik's video to a monitor to his right.

On the monitor in front of him, after Cora sat down and indicated she wanted some advice, Butch pulled up her run again.

"So, just focusing on when you got hit the first time for now," Butch said, rapidly typing. He pulled up the first sequence when Cora got hit in the wing. The footage began to run until a paintball hit her in the right wing. He pointed at the screen. "Here. You take a shot to the right wing. Now," he rewound the film to a few seconds earlier, "instead of flying higher at this point, if you closed the distance between you and the turret, you ruin the firing solution and the paintball misses." A bright line on the screen indicated the trajectory of the paintball, and Cora could see it safely flying wide of her wing.

"Not only does it miss, but it puts you in a better attack position to take out the turret," he said. Then he shrugged. "Sometimes the best defense is a good offense. Just something for your consideration. Overall, it was a hell of a run, but I know how much of a perfectionist you are."

Typing again, he shifted Darrik's footage back to the monitor in front of him and Cora. "We'll take a look at some more stuff later if you want. For now though, let's see what new tricks Darrik has up his sleeves."

[Courier]

Warren watched Darrik's fight with his 'shadow beast' and pondered his advise. How would he kill himself? Dominate? If someone actually killed him then there'd be no future self to come back and save him. That was an ugly thought. Maybe Dominate and then go back in time to make him kill everyone when they were still kids? Since that hadn't happened, could it happen? Maybe he should talk to Pip about ways to prevent them from finding out.

[Quantum Fire]

XP update... +4 standard xp to all participants in this thread at this point