Mutants & Masterminds: The Indigo Children - Chapter 1: The Master's Examination

[jameson (ST)]

Continued from Chapter 1: Pizza Anyone?

Fifteen minutes of walking down the dark subway tunnel was just enough to bring about an acute sense of the creeps in more than one of the strange fellowship. Randy, striving to be macho, tried to act as though the rats and constant darkness did not bother him, but he jumped a little every time they heard a noise. At last they found the tunnel Raphael's directions had indicated, an old spur of tracks started down it before abruptly ending. The tunnel was walled off and the door through the wall borded over. Penny swept the flashlight over the door and found a piece of paper tacked to it.

Originally Posted By: Raphael's Note

Young ones. You have found the entry to the first test. Beware however, these are tests of both courage, skill, and critical thinking. Each of the following tests will challenge you and if you fail you will die. This will be your only warning and your only chance to turn back. I am confident that you have it in you to pass these tests, and once through you will be ready to face whatever challenges await you in the future.

The door handle is unlocked and opens to reveal a smallish room, perhaps fifteen feet square with high cielings.

[Rodney]

Rodney uses echo-location on the room, trying to determine if there is anything there he can't see. That failing him,

"Death Traps are just stupid. We have his pizzas and I hope we would have the good sense to bleed all over them if we did die."

"No, I'll go first and you guys keep an eye out to what happens to me."

"I still think this is nuts," he mutters as he goes in first.

He's got to be lying, but what's the trick to it all.

[jameson (ST)]

Rodney walks into the room and finds that there is a simple steel door on the left. The word "Courage" has been inscribed onto the metal. The room itself is plain concrete with ceramic tiles and not other obvious features save the recessed lighting. The metal door has no visible hinges on this side and no handel with which to open it. Clearly it will open upon a passing completion of the first trial. The door back remains open and the other stand there, pizza in hand, waiting. Nothing seems to be happening.

[Rodney]

Rodney looks around. He searches his pockets and pulls out some quarters. He takes out one and rolls it across the floor and into the door.

So much for Courage. It was never my strong suit.

Barring any reaction, Rodney walks over and pushes lightly on the door, seeing if it tilts up or down, left or right. Sometimes the direct approach is the best. - Courage- Right.

[Ramani]

Ramani didn't like the sewers at all. The smell was annoying and the filth would be taking days until she got it out of her fur. The thought of cleaning herself after this encounter made her shiver with disgust.

She stayed close to Penny and Cole half seeking Cole's support and half protecting Penny whom she had quickly grown attached to. The red head treated her nice and was very unlike most humans Ramani had met. She liked her and wanted to show it.

As they reached the first chamber Ramani looked curiously into the room but it was Rodney who just entered it and examined it. She would have to wait it seemed.

[jameson (ST)]

Randy peeked into the room. "Are we going in? I don't want to, you know, die." He looked around at the others and then at Rodney who was trying to shove the room's only other door open it would seem. "Umm, I think we probably have to decide who is going in and close this door behind us. You know... commit to it. Maybe?"

[Rodney]

It don't have to be the one?

"Well it says Courage and I think we all know that's not my strong suit. I'll stay in here ... alone, if that's what we decide to do. Maybe I can leave a note for what works in the rooms I pass. That's a good idea, right?"

[jameson (ST)]

Randy looks at the note, "I don't think that's how it works. I think once the test starts anybody who opted out is ... well, out. See he says 'This will be your only warning and your only chance to turn back.' I think we're either in together or out together. At least those who are in are in together." He turned to Penny, looking to see what she wanted to do and trying to look brave.

[Rodney]

Rodney looks over the door, looking for some secret way to open it, a trap on it, or some locking mechanism that keeps it shut.

Click to reveal..

Take twenty on the skill test (1 minute) 20+8=28.

He finds nothing. Either the crafter of this door was God-like, or there was nothing there.

[Ramani]

Ramani couldn't hold back her curiosity any more and simply entered the room sniffing the area which Rodney was inspecting. She looked back at the others and made a catlike sound that could be interpreted as "are you coming or what?".

[SalmonMax]

Wally looked down at the pizzas he was carrying and said, "Seems like a funny way to say 'thanks for the food.'"

Then he looks over at his platypus friend.

"Whaddya think, Ozzie? You're the brains of the operation. Deathtraps and pizza, or...no deathtraps, but still pizza?"

[z-Penny Mann]

"I say no deathtraps," Penny said, her voice rising. "I'm eighteen years old! I have my entire life ahead of me! I'm not walking into deathtraps set up by a giant turtle!"

Randy said, "Well, they might not be fatal."

"Yeah, they're the warm and cuddly deathtraps," Penny sighed, "the ones that give you a kiss and a hug as they kill you to death! That's what they do! Otherwise, they'd be hurttraps, or paintraps. Death... traps!" She spelled 'death' out with an index finger as she said one more time: "Death!"

[Cole Mulvaney]

Cole Follows in, moving out ahead of the others, very glad both he and Ramani can see in the dark. He calls to the others. "Come on. He's been watching us. If that's true he's had ample opportunity to kill any and all of us. I doubt he'd go through all this to do so when there are a great number of other ways to go about it."

[SalmonMax]

"Now see," Wally said, sniffing at the pizzas thoughtfully. "For myself, I think Penny's right. This turtle shows up outta nowhere, we've never met, he's been stalking us, and then he invites us to his flat for deathtraps? And what's he offering, eh? He's already said he doesn't know about the porcubear or the men in the vans."

He shrugs.

"On the other hand, Mr. Tiger's got a point too. The turtle's gone to a lot of trouble to find us and watch us and bring us down here...only to kill us? Seems dodgy to me."

"And on the OTHER other hand, I'm really hungry, so..."

He hops into the room and looks around. "Here deathtrap deathtrap..."

[Ozzie Bloggs]

Originally Posted By: SalmonMax

"Whaddya think, Ozzie? You're the brains of the operation. Deathtraps and pizza, or...no deathtraps, but still pizza?"

"Well, eating pizza would be much safer, on the other hand if we going to be heroes then we need to make our way through the deathtraps." Ozzie exhales before going on. "Penny and Randy you two should be the last ones in, I think it would be safer that way, it's to bad that we don't have any radio's, then I wouldn't even consider having you follows us." Eying the two humans for a moment, Ozzie nods and enters the room.

[z-Penny Mann]

"Are we doing this?" Penny asked, nearly hyperventilating. "Are we really doing this?!"

"I'd say yes," Randy said, moving to stand behind her, waiting for her to go. "Mann?" he asked after a moment.

"You're going to have to push me," she hissed through gritted teeth.

"Are you serious?" Randy asked, quirking an eyebrow.

"Completely."

"Ok, then," he said and bent down, scooping her up in his arms.

"This isn't a push!" Penny yelped, even as she put her arms around his shoulders.

"I don't like pushing girls," he said, grinning at her as he walked into the room and set her down. "Pushing into them, sure," he added with a mutter. Penny glared at him, waiting for death.

[jameson (ST)]

Randy walked into the room and set Penny down then turned, "We're doing this right?" The others all nodded, in their own way confident or scared. Randy shrugged, "This is pretty damn nuts," he said as he pulled the door shut. A second steel door slide down over the first, slamming into place with a thud. There was a loud click, audible to all, as bolts slid into place locking the door thoroughly shut. For a long moment they were left in silence encased in a concrete room in a disused subway tunnel beneath the city. Then another audible click from the other door as bolts disengaged and it swung outward. The door opened to a rough subway tunnel, the room behind must have been purpose built. There was a moment of confusion as they exited into the tunnel. Once the room was clear the door closed behind them. "OH! I get it!" Randy's voice echoed down the tunnel breaking the silence into a thousand pieces. "Courage. Duh, the first test was to see if we had the courage to walk into certain death. See, this wont be so bad. Like Cole said, it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to kill us."

Randy started down the hall, clearly emboldened by the outcome of the first test. The others followed suit and after perhaps a quarter mile they came to an open circular space. The tracks from the prior line had left ruts int the floor and they could tell this room formed a "Y" junction of two spurs. One line appears to have never been finished as the tunnel continued on for only another fifteen or twenty feet before ending in a pile of rubble. The other stretched on, curving beneath the city. Half an hour after leaving the first chamber they found themselves at an old station. They were further down that any of the lines Randy and Penny were familiar with based on the slop of the prior tunnel. They mounted to the platform and found that it had been converted. It was no longer an open space but instead had seven metal doors set into walls of stone and concrete. Seven doors for seven people. One door had a note taped to it.

Originally Posted By: Raphael's Note

Students. You have proven your courage by accepting the challenge that is laid before you. To knowingly walk into a situation from which you may not return is a true test of one's mettle. You will find seven chambers, one for each of you, though I can hardly claim to have planed as such. Each of you must choose a door and stand before it, your challenge lies within.

[Rodney]

Rodney rumbled something about being a mouse in a maze. He scanned the seven doors looking and listening for any sign. Finally, driven by his fear of failure, and the loss of the sense of belonging he felt with the team, the Man-Bat approached the rightmost door.

"I'd rather be Right than wrong," he quipped. He looked at his chosen fate and wondered again how different his life would have been if his father had just stayed home that day.

[Ramani]

Ramani shrugged and took Cole's hand leading him to the doors left next to Rodney. She had no idea where the difference was and she wasn't the patient type. To her one door was like the other. She was either very brave, dumb or naive - or maybe a little of all.

[Cole Mulvaney]

Cole smiled at Ramani and took up his position before his own door next to her. "Be safe." It was his only whispered word, but the gentle squeeze of his paw on hers spoke infinitely more of his concern.

[Ozzie Bloggs]

Ozzie moved to the first door, as the tigers and bat moved towards the right side. His doubts and fears of not being able to do more to save more of his kind surfaced in his thoughts, but he quickly pushed them back lest they become a distraction for the test. He turned towards the others and said in a hush tone "See you on the other side" as he opened the door.

[z-Penny Mann]

Scowling, but determined not to have the choice taken from her, Penny picked the middle door, with Cole on her right. Randy stepped to the door just to her left, looking very unhappy.

[jameson (ST)]

Rodney

The door opens and Rodney walks into a room of plain concrete. The door quickly closes behind him and locks leaving him alone. He takes little time to inspect the door out and finds the word "Completion" inscribed on the metal. The room is plain concrete except for two features. The first are a series of wide drains spaced about the floor. The second are a pair of thick electrical cables which hang from the ceiling. The last few inches of the cables have been stripped bare and hang roughly a foot above the floor. Perhaps a minute after entering the room Rodney hears the sound of a pump and rushing water and soon water begins to rise from the drains in the floor.

Rodney appraises the situation and leaps into the air, flapping his wings furiously to maintain flight. He grabs the cables with his feet and forces the bare ends together. There is intense heat and sparks being thrown out from the makeshift connection. Rodney completes the circuit for a few seconds before the is a click and the power cuts out. The water begins to drain out through the floor and the door marked "Completion" swings open.

********

Randy

The door opens and Randy walks into the room. Aside from plain concrete and the door out the only other feature is a pedestal upon which sits a golden statue of a dragon. The door clicks shut behind him and locks into place. Randy moves to the opposite door and finds the metal inscribed with the words "The Dragon's Mouth". The dragon is pointed at the wall to the right of the door out and Randy is about to go look at it when there is a rumbling sound and then it belches forth a spray of flaming jelly-like liquid. The napalm covers a section of the wall floor and ceiling and then stops. The dragon statue begins to rotate clockwise and stops now pointed to the corner.

Despite the heat being thrown off by the napalm it is easy to avoid the burning jelly as it does not spread and the room is formed of non-flammable concrete. Randy tries the door and finds no hinges or handle just a plain metal door bearing the words "The Dragon's Mouth" inscribed into the steel. He frowns unhappily, he's going to have to look for a way to stop the rotation of the dragon or he'll be cooked like a hot dog on a grill.

Randy checks his watch as the dragon finished moving and vomits another gout of napalm onto a fresh section of wall. He estimates that in a little less than three minutes there will be no safe spot in the room. He approaches the statue and finds no gap between the statue and pedestal, no way to see the mechanism that rotates the dragon. He tries his strength against it but is unable to stop its rotation.

Gulping Randy peers into the statue's mouth. It's dark inside however and he cannot see anything beyond the first few inches. Warily he slides his hand into the mouth further and further. The heat is intense and he can feel the vibration of the statue as it rotates. At the far reach of his arm he feels a small hole. He quickly decides that he has little other choice and stick his finger down into the hole. He finds a small lever and quickly flips it. As soon as the switch toggles the statue grinds to a halt and the door swings open. Breathing a sigh of relief Randy extracts his hand and exits the room.

********

Cole

The door before Cole opens to a cube shaped room of concrete. It is roughly ten feet on all sides and high. The door closes behind him and locks. Cole walks to the door opposite and finds the word "Failure" inscribed on the door. The floor and ceiling both are completely perforated with evenly spaced holes roughly a half inch in diameter. With little warning a yellowish gas begins to rise from the holes in the floor, staying pooled at the low level the gas must be denser than air. Simultaneously a blue gas, clearly lighter than air, begins to flow out of the holes in the ceiling.

"There's a way out, I'm not going to fail this."

He took a second to concentrate, eyes scanning the entire room looking for anything out of place. "There has to be something here I'm overlooking."

Cole looks around his eyes sliding over the plain concrete and back to the doors. The door out is plain metal with the word "Failure" inscribed on it. The word stares back at him like an indictment, piling on the frustration that he is trapped in a room with spare minutes to live. He stares at the hated word. Failure. He blinks, something is not right, the metal where the word is inscribed seems to reflect light differently.

Cole's claws unsheathe. "Can't go back, so I have to go forward." He draws back a powerful arm and lashes out with his right paw, raking his claws along the door, praying neither of the gasses is methane.

Failure, a word that cannot be in the vocabulary of a warrior and leader. Cole lashed out at the door. His claws skittered across the steel and then gouged into the hated word. There was an insert set flush into the surface of the door. I had been carved with the word and painted to match the door, almost. Cole quickly tries to remove the insert, noting how it simply doesn't match.

The insert is set flush with the surface of the door, only a trick of the light gave it away. Cole attacks the insert and smashes it revealing a level behind the panel inside the door itself. He flips the toggle and there is a whooshing sound as the gasses are evacuated from the room and replaced with clean air. The door swings open, Cole has passed the test.

********

Penny

The door before Penny opens and she walks into a small room. The door closes behind her immediately and the sound of bolts clicking home can be heard as the door is locked. The room is much like a cell, with equal distentions in all three axis, roughly ten feet to a side. Opposite the door Penny came in is a similar metal door with the word "Inside" inscribed on the metal The only other feature to the otherwise plain concrete room is a thick rope which hangs from the ceiling in the center of the room to within an inch or so from the floor. Penny has little time to look around before with a lurch the floor begins to retract from the left wall, disappearing under the right wall. Penny, despite doubting that it will work, will try the door first.

As expected she finds that like the exit from the first room this door as no visible hinges and no door handle of any kind. It is plain featureless metal apart from the inscription "Inside". Penny peeks over the edge of the retreating wall and is greeted by a deep chasm that disappears from site into darkness. A quick timing of the floor reveals that it will have completely retracted into the opposite wall in a little less than three minutes.

There's only one thing of note to the door. Swallowing hard, Penny grabs the rope so she has it and goes the door, closely examining the word "Inside". It seemed to be the focus of this thing...

DEATHtrap, she reminded herself again.

Holding onto the rope for dear life as the floor continues its inexorable disappearing act Penny inspects the metal door. She taps, bangs, and kicks the door but it does not open and seems solid and immobile. A quick glance at the floor reveals that Penny has perhaps thirty second before she will not be able to reach the door and maybe two minutes total before she will have nothing but rope keeping her from falling to her death.

Desperate, Penny went for the rope and started to climb. It was really hard, and slow. Her breath was rasping in her lungs within seconds. "I'll never... dis gym... again, God... If I survive... this," she grumbled.

At the top of the rope, she started to probe around the edges of the rope and the hole. It seemed an odd way to rig a rope, and it was the only thing left for her to pursue, at this point.

Penny finds the hole in the ceiling to be cut to exactly the diameter of the rope. The rope itself is a braided type from multiple smaller twisted strands. The simple white polyester is solid to her probing and unremarkable in all ways. In desperation, Penny determines to look at the last "inside" she has left - the end of the rope.

The end of the rope was cut but not melted. Even as the floor continues to pull toward the wall Penny, with her feet sliding further and further from the center of the room, desperately begins to unravel the fibers. It takes little effort and less time before she finds a thin wire woven into the center of the rope. The copper gleams where it stick out of its sheathing material. Penny looks down into the dark abyss below and realizes she has barely a minute before the floor disappears completely.

Penny grabs the wire and pulls. From above there is a click and the floor grinds to a halt before reversing direction and returning to its full extension. The door swings open and Penny, heaving a sigh of relief as the muscles in her arms twitch from strenuous use, is able to walk out to freedom.

********

Ramani

The door before Ramani opens and admits her into a cube shaped room of plain concrete. It is roughly ten feet in all dimensions and the floor is tiled with plain white tiles roughly a foot square save for a single green tile in the center of the room. The door closes behind Ramani and locks with the sound of metal bolts snapping into place. On the opposite side of the room a second metal door waits, closed. Ramani finds that there is an inscription which reads "Patience" in the door. Other than the two doors and the tiled floor the room is plain, smooth, concrete.

Ramani inspected the room carefully with her senses fully alert. She ignored the inscription at first since that was something Cole usually did. She had trouble reading and preferred to rely on her intuition most of the time.

The inscription was the only 'hint' she found and so she settled down to read it carefully. "Patience", she repeated the word as she read it out loud like a first grade student.

Patience... she hated that. Sighing she sat down and started to lick her fur hoping that an extended clean-up session would take enough time for 'Patience'.

Ramani inspected the room and found the walls to be featureless concrete. The door was plain steel inscribed only with the word "patience", the ceiling was broken only by the simple light fixtures and the floor was tiled by many white tiles and a single green tile at the center of the room. Sitting down she waited but nothing happened.

Minutes stretched to an eternity which was unbearable for Ramani to suffer. Once she was done with licking clean her fur she stood up and walked around the room again cursing it’s confining space. Subconsciously she extended her claws and walked along the side of the door she came through repeating that motion for about 5 minutes.

After another 5 minutes of walking back and forth she started to growl lowly and snarled at the green tile on the floor. She stopped and examined it again finding nothing that could help get out of the situation. Trying to calm down she walked to the green tile and sat right on it and waited again. Her instincts took over again and she started to lick her paws cleaning the claws which would take another 10 minutes. Hopefully something would happen then…

As soon as Ramani sits down on the green tile there is a click and then a voice speaks from a hidden speaker. "You have just armed a fifteen pound anti-tank mine which will explode in three minutes. If you remove your weight from the tile it will also explode." The speaker crackles off leaving Ramani in silence once more.

Ramani's first instinctual response was to jump right of it but she restrained herself. Her whole body tensed and she snarled exposing her teeth in anger. She looked around frantically trying to find a spot where she could duck for cover but the room was just the same.

Ramani didn't want to die! Not now after her life was starting to make sense. She growled in frustration and anger at this stupid test and forced herself to remain seated on the mine. She looked longingly at the door wishing she hadn't entered this room. She wished she had given Cole something like a kiss, whatever a kiss was but she knew it was important.

Her defiance and anger melted as the seconds passed. She saw no way escaping this deathtrap. Defeated she slumped down and waited for her fate. There was nothing she could do and she winced helplessly at the door - the only way out she knew.

The minutes click by, literally, as the mechanical timer inside the mine ticks down. Three minutes pass and the timer utters a final click before going silent. The door to exit the room swings open of its own accord. Ramani's patience has paid off and she has passed the test.

********

Ozzie

The door opens and Ozzie walks into a plain concrete room. Just as quickly the door closes and locks behind him. A quick survey of the room shows that the metal door opposite the one he entered is inscribed with the word "Solitude". The room itself is featureless concrete save a small hole where the floor meets the left wall and the far wall. The only other feature of the room is a small cage with contains a mouse. Ozzie has little time to contemplate his surroundings before a loud grinding sound signals the movement of the right hand wall which begins to slowly push forward toward the left.

Once the sound of the wall moving hits Ozzie, his minds kicks into overdrive. So far we got a mouse in a cage, and a small hole. Hmmm maybe if I let the mouse out, it will run into the hole. Could that be the answer? That almost seems to easy, well it's either that or get squished. Here goes nothing.

Ozzie moves as quick as he can to the cage which he opens up. Doing his best he tries to herd the mouse towards the small hole, hoping he made the right choice.

Ozzie opens the cage and deposits the mouse onto the floor. It scatters away from him and for a short time he chases it around the room. Finally it disappears down the hole. After perhaps thirty seconds there is a click and the wall reverses direction and returns to its original position. Breathing a sigh of relief Ozzie notices that the door out has opened.

********

Wally

The door opens and Wally hops into a small room. It closes behind him and locks as Wally hops toward the opposite door. The inscription on the metal reads "Fulfillment". Wally finds it funny that he would be trapped in a room called "Fulfillment" when all of the pizza is elsewhere. He looks around and finds that the ceiling is adorned with an array of six inch long steel spikes. The floor is marked with a regular array of holes which he finds match up to the spikes. As Wally is looking around the ceiling begins to slowly descend toward the floor with a harsh grinding noise. Almost at the same time a gas begins to seep up through the holes in the floor.

"Think I saw this in a movie once," Wally mutters as he kicks uneasily at the slowly spreading gas cloud. "Don't think that'll work this time though... So. Fulfillment."

What was fulfillment? Not getting impaled, gassed and crushed was a good start. But really. Eating was, right. Pizza. It was when you filled up a hole inside you.

"Filled up a hole, eh?"

He looked up to the ceiling, then hunched low...and sprang upwards! The jump was carefully measured not to stab him, but to get him close enough to a spike to give it a swat and see if he could break it off or knock it loose or something.

Wally leaps upwards several times but finds that the descending spikes are quite strong and firmly mounted to the ceiling. He does notice that one spike near the center appears shorter and ends in a blunted point rather than the deadly spike that the others have. A quick check on his watch and he estimates he has a little over two minutes remaining before he is impaled, gassed, and crushed.

He cautiously hops to the center hole and covers his mouth and nose just in case while he peers inside it.The gas stinks, it irritates his eyes, but by holding his breath Wally is able to inspect the under the blunted spike. To his surprise he finds that it does not appear to be belching forth any of the toxic gas that is emanating from the other holes.

Wally glances up at the descending ceiling. Not a WHOLE lot of time left. And here was a HOLE that seemed to be blocked by something. More, it was meant to be blocked, because the spike was shorter.

He stood up again, long enough to get a gulp of fresh air, then squatted down low enough to poke his finger down into the hole. At first it seemed empty, but he squeezed as hard as he could, until it hurt the thin web of skin between his fingers...and there at the bottom...just barely touchable...was some kind of switch.

This time Wally didn't stop to think. Time was short, and it was hard to imagine this thing making things any -worse-. With a jerk of his finger, he managed to hit the switch and flick it from one position to the other.

An audible click followed and the ceiling ground to a halt. A hum and whir from below the floor grew from the sudden silence as the gas was sucked out through the floor. With a further mechanical growl the ceiling began to rise until it returned to its original height. The door marked Fulfillment swung open and Wally found himself free once more.

[jameson (ST)]

The last to exit is Ramani who is a barely contained and tightly wound spring after having been made to wait patiently as part of her test. She exits the room and finds the others, whole, intact, and apparently unharmed. They find themselves in a dimly lit subway terminal, a inter-route switching station. The white green and gold ceramic tiles are dirty with age accumulated grime. Their way back blocked by the rooms they had just passed through they instead move forward. They check the line's other platform and find it dark and in disrepair. Noting that this station was used to change between two line however they quickly find a tunnel that leads away. As they approach the second station they see the glow of ... Christmas Lights? ... and the sound of music, loud music.

They enter into a two way split station. The tunnels for the tracks are split down the middle with a massive platform and platforms on either side border both lines. Its enormous and at one time must have been able to accommodate hundreds of commuters. Now however it looks like a combination of loft apartment, skate park, and martial arts dojo. Ramps and half pipes connect the varies platforms one of which has been covered entirely by padded mats like one would see in a martial arts school. Wooden weapons hang on the wall and there are wooden practice stands at one end. The center platform is split my many old oriental screens and other makeshift walls. It is from there that the music is coming and after a moment the volume is turned down.

"Come on in. You're welcome here, you did earn it after all."

[Rodney]

Rodney took to the air and went forward. Upon seeing their host, he had to ask,

"How did you know what rooms we would pick, or was it totally random?"

What he didn't add was that he felt his room was the easiest and he had rocked at it. No rush what so ever. Rodney was't one to assume he was the cleverest. It wasn't in his nature.

Eating pizza was in his nature though. Pepperoni and mushrooms would hit the spot.

Click to reveal..

Healthy/Rested HP:4

[z-Penny Mann]

When Penny exited her room, Randy walked to her and grabbed her, pulling her to him for a hug. "You ok?" he asked softly.

"Told you it was a deathtrap," she mumbled as she hugged him back.

He laughed. "Never can let that 'told you so' go, can you?" Normally, he'd be annoyed. He couldn't be right now.

"Nope," she agreed, looking up at him. His gaze at her was strange. "What?"

"I'm glad you're ok," he said softly. After a moment, he added, "I wouldn't want to try to explain this to Mike."

"Me, neither," she said, pulling back from the hug.

"C'mon, let's get some pie," he said, following the others as they proceeded deeper into the sewer.

[Cole Mulvaney]

Cole laida reassuring hand on Ramani's shoulder and smiled. "Glad you're ok."

He nuzzles her cheek once and then nods. "Come on, we better catch up before they eat all the Pizza." With that the male tiger took off after the Rodney and the humans.

[Ramani]

A hand on Ramani's shoulder wasn't enough for her. She embraced him completely and pulled him close to her laying her head on his chest and listening to his heartbeat for a few seconds. This kind of emotional expression was a rare thing and he knew she just had gone through a very stressful situation for her. Her claws slowly retracted back while she relaxed.

Ramani enthusiastically nuzzled him back and followed him never letting go of his paw.

[Cole Mulvaney]

The situation had clearly distressed her and Cole returned her affections. "We're done now, we all made it through." He felt her claws even through his furn, nd didn't release her until she finally pulled back. Paw in Paw they continued on to meet and eat with everyone else.

[jameson (ST)]

They find a battered picnic table and a folding card table strewn with paper plates and a mix-mash of cups and glasses. There is a bottle of soda and a six pack of beer, condensation still forming on the chilled cans, sitting on the tables. Raphael sits, lounges really, in a battered old couch, his coat and hat gone. The group gets a clear look at him. Apart from a rumpled pair of cargo shorts he wears no cloths other than a red mask tied about his face, he seems unaware of it as though he's been wearing it his whole life. Stacked on top of the discarded coat are a pair of slender steel sais. His leathery green skin is broken up by bony exoskeletal plates, his shell mutated and adapted to his humanoid form. He pops a can of beer and takes a quick drink. "Seems like I was right about you," he says and then, eying the pizza he asks, "Did you get extra anchovies? That'd be sweet."

[SalmonMax]

"Those fish, right?" Wally inquires, bouncing up from behind. "Nasty, mate. Even the smell...ngh." His eyes fix on the beer.

"I wouldn't say no to one of those though. I'd even drink a domestic right now..."

"I've got to ask...those room thingies. They weren't -really- deathtraps, were they? I mean, if I'd been an utter prat, or if, you know, my finger had been an inch shorter, that wouldn't have killed me would it?"

[Rodney]

Rodney flies over and lands, picking up a soda.

"I'm not a beer drinker - high metabolism, but I could eat a can of those stinky fish right now. I'm starved. Were is the perperoni."

A piece of pizza in hand,

"So, this whole place yours. Doesn't smell as bad as I thought it would. Looking for roommates?"

[z-Penny Mann]

Penny tries not to stare, but it's hard. Like her companions, he's strangely put together, and she'd like nothing more than to figure out how he worked. Unfortunately, that would mean an autopsy, which she wasn't proficient at yet, not proficient enough that she could learn anything. So for now, she just watched - and ate the pizza, of course.

[jameson (ST)]

"If I told you that you were in no danger at all would it make a difference? From your point of view they were situations of do or die. Walk into possible death, or walk away. It was as much a determination of your worth as it was a test of your critical thinking. As for your skill, it too will be tested in time, but what I saw this evening was enough to convince me that you are not all simply more brave than stupid." He bit off a chunk of pizza and followed it with a guzzle of beer. A belch rumbled out of him shortly thereafter. "Once I shared this home ... I'd rather not discuss that right now."

[Rodney]

"I'm not very brave," Rodney jokes, "so that must make me frakking brlliant."

He looks around the place, looking for a location to hang - literally. At home he had to hang from an exercise bar hung in a doorway. This place looked cavernous and that brought out his 'Batty instincts'. Another piece of pizza and he couldn't help himself but to walk around. Rodney was way to curious for his own good.

[Cole Mulvaney]

Cole devours an entire slice quickly, practicaly inhaling a slice of Anchovie and pepperoni pizza. He pops open one of the sodas, not by the tab, but using one of his claws in the proper area of the can. He takes a long pull. "Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good, but I much prefer to be both any day of the week."

He sat down in one of the chairs, his tail coiling around his side to hand down beside his leg.

[SalmonMax]

Wally munches on a slice of pizza meditatively, and spits out a stray pepperoni that somehow got onto his veggie special.

"It'd make a difference about you, mate," he says to Raphael. "S'one thing to teach a lesson, s'another to...well, anyway, no use going on about it now."

He takes a long guzzle from his can, then says, "I don't suppose you've got cable down here?"

[Ozzie Bloggs]

Ozzie grabs a slices of the pizza and sits down to eat. He pays special attention to Raphael's words and tries to enjoy the pizza. He had kinda of guessed that he wasn't really in any danger during the 'test' but the possibility of dying had brought him out of his funk a little.

"So now that you got us here, you mean to tell us your not going to tell us your story? I thought that was part of the point of us coming here mate!"

[jameson (ST)]

"The point was to get some pizza delivered for once!" Raphael laughs, "Oh, man, Mikey woulda loved that one." Almost as the words leave his mouth he sobers once more. "Once I had a family. Now they are gone. I am alone." He looks hard at Ozzie, "You passed the tests to earn the right to be my students. My story is my own however."

The remainder of the evening went by more jovially if more subdued as well. Raphael showed them the "easy entry" which was significantly shorter and faster route back to the surface through a disused maintenance entrance. Over the following months Raphael's home became a sort of meeting place and second home to the mutants.