Juka and Saph's A-MAZE-ing Adventure! (PM)

Saph was just on time.

He strolled up to the danger room doors with a determined look on his face; he had spent all night practicing with his powers, and his training had only intensified when he found out about the try-out. The timing was perfect; he'd just spent a good amount of time training with his partner, and the time he'd spent alone had shown some real improvement. He'd really found a lot of things out.

The older mutant stepped on up next to his partner, not saying anything, but rather just making eye contact, and nodding before he moved to open up the door. He knew before the door even opened that he and Juka had this clinched; they were one helluva team. They matched up in power pretty naturally, and Saph trusted the kid with his life. What he didn't know was what exactly they were getting themselves into.

He read the message outside the door, and showed no reaction; did he understand it? Not really. Did it matter? Not really. The door slid open, and Saph allowed room for Juka to head in as well.

Saph was greeted to a rather odd sight... A hedge maze? The place looked... Colorful; oddly so... Like they were in some kinda NES game or something. His serious demeanor faltered for a moment as he scratched the back of his head, and looked over to Juka. "Eh... Well, I guess we'd better get started..."

"Hey Massochist," Juka waved happily as Saph finally arrived. "How about we kick this maze's ass, yes?" He peeked inside, surprised to see not just any maze, but a rather colorfulness maze. A rather colorful maze with some rather familiar features. Features that should not be in the real world. Features, it seemed, that were taken directly from video games, a fact Juka knew because of friends who played for hours in his presence.

The bushes that made up the maze itself weren't bushes at all, but rather densely put together little green dome-like treese, straight out of Super Mario Brothers 3. Floating into the maze itself he looked up to see fluffy white clouds, a very blue sky and an orange sun, all of which appeared to be straight out of a Mario game. He blinked and looked back at Saph. "Is this what I think it is?"

Juka's first thought, upon entering the maze, was that he could, perhaps, simply float above it and get to the end that way, bringing Saph along for the ride. It struck him as a little bit too easy but he had to try just in case. Maybe Shin had conveniently forgotten the fact that he could float? He began rising into the air but the moment he got above the treeline, the little orange sun that looked so sweet and innocent way up in the sky, spun around in a circle and then dive bombed him. Juka barely managed to dodge without getting singed by the evil animated sun before returning to the ground. "Well, I guess floating out of here is out of the question." He glared at the sun which he could swear was smirking down at him.

Juka sent one more angry glare it the malicious sun before getting down to business. So, if he couldn't simply float over the hedge maze, he'd just have to get through it the old fashioned way. Or if not the old fashioned way, because floating was not exactly old fashioned, then at least not the amzingly flying sort of way.

Floating a few feet behind Saph, the moment the pie came flying at his friend's face, Juka couldnt' help but giggle. Even if he managed to suppress the giggle almost as soon as it erupted from his mouth, he could only hope he hadn't done irreperable damage with it. But pies. Really. They were funny. And creative. And, well, with his transluscent bubble he was completely immune to pie goo and therefore it was somebody else who would suffer the sweet whipcreamy wrath. And that somebody else, as it turned out, was Saph.

When Saph stepped aside for Juka to take the lead, he didn't say a thing, just floated along in front of him, trying oh so desperately to suppress further giggles. Which he succeeded at. Mostly. Everything went very well and very easily the next several meters into the maze. It seemed Juka taking the lead was just what was most needed and no further pies or anything else appeared. Until, that is, he floated right into another wire, this one closer to chest height. Apparently the designer of the maze had known that he would be floating and not walking.

At first Juka didn't think that the wire had triggered anything and he was about to turn back to Saph to tell him as much when a shiny object fell from a white fluffy cloud. He turned back to the cloud just in time to see a second shiny object fall from the sky, an object that looked pecular and...coin shaped? He only had just enough time to identify the falling coin when another coin was dropped by the grinning white cloud directly onto his head, with a painfully audible thump. "Hey, I thought coins were good!" The next object the cloud dropped was a little spiky ball and as painful as the coin had been he was pretty sure he would like the orange spiked ball even less. Glaring, while cathartic, did not seem to be the most effective defence.

As Saph saved Juka from the spiky pain-filled orange ball of doom, he thought about apologizing for his earlier giggle but didn't get the chance as another spiky ball and another coin both fell from the evil looking cloud, aimed right for his head. With a fast thought, he brought his anvils around, arranging them so they each touched one another, forming a sort of square metal umbrella over his head. First the spiky ball fell on his anvilbrella, rolling off the edge and then the coin shortly afterward.

"I think I'll be fine, my brave hero," Juka answered, watching Saph's crowbar sail into an unknown portion of the maze. "What kind of twisted mind created this maze anyway?" About the last thing he ever expected to be doing, whether it was to apply to join the X-Men or for any other reason, was to wander through some twisted Nintendo labyrinth.

Juka's first impressions of the green plumbing pipes were not particularly threatening. He was familiar enough with Mario that he recognized the pipes instantly. Even when the first flower first stuck its head out of the pipe, he didn't immediately think that it was a threat. How frightening could a flower really be? As it turned out, very frightening when that flower also happened to blow little balls of fire!

The first ball of fire Juka managed to avoid, but then fire spitting flowers began appearing from all of the pipes, each of them aiming their insidious little balls of flame at the two of them and while the flames moved just a little bit slower than flames really should move (actually they shouldn't move at all should they?), with that many it was impossible to dodge them all. One of the balls of fire hit him on the shoulder and she shrieked in rather feminine fashion. If not for his bubble he was sure there would probably be the scent of burning hair wafting through the air.

Out of the corner of his eye Juka noticed a single pipe without a flower coming out of it. He pointed, "We need to get in there as quickly as possible!" Trusting Saph to follow, Juka ran for it, getting hit by 2 more little balls of fire in the process, but making it to the pipe more or less all in one piece.

Entering the pipe provided yet another in a long string of surreal experiences. Instead of the inside of the pipe being green, as expected, it was orange and instead of being smooth like the inside of a pipe should be, it was more like dirt. With a backwards glance at Saph and a shrug of his shoulders, Juka walked further into the 'pipe' where he came to a T shaped junction. To one side of the T was what looked like a blown up balloon dragon complete with fire breathing breath and to the other side was what he could only assume was a human in a white suite and mask. In his hands he carried what looked like a bike pump. Neither the balloon dragon nor the beekeeper man had yet seen Juka but they had to choose a path soon and as soon as they did, one or both of them was sure to spot them and then who knew what they would do.

"Dig...dug?"

Juka was having difficulty believing it himself. What kind of sick and twisted person not only brought the bright and colourful world of Mario to life but also created and underground Dig Dug land? They must have a very disturbed mind indeed and they must greatly desire the mental suffering of both himself and Saph. Oh, Shin would surely feel their revenge at the end of this little task. Most certainly.

Juka jumped at the sound of the exploding dragon balloon, or at least he would have had he not currently been floating in his bubble. Instead his bubble did a sort of hopping motion upwards, before returning to its usual floating height. Although reasonably certain his own bubble wasn't able to be popped like that, he really did not want to find out first hand. Popping looked horrifically painful.

"Guess its up to me then," Juka commented, staring straight at his foe with his best intimidating glare. As it turned out, his best intimidating glare was not very intimidating as the little white man with the bike pump didn't even appear to notice, simply walking forward, death in his eyes. Or at least he assumed there was death in the little humanoid's eyes since he wasn't actually able to see its eyes beyond the mask.

Juka prepared himself until the man got close enough to strike, trying to remember what he knew about Dig Dug. If he remembered correctly, the characters in the game were balloons that could be blown up, just like the enemies. That meant...maybe they needed to be exploded. Or maybe hitting them with anvils would do.

The beekeeper man sent out his bike pump in Juka's direction and he dodged dexterously, floating just above the line of the attack. Simultaneously he sent down one of his anvils, hitting the man directly on the head and...having the anvil bounce off again with no apparent damage. The anvil. Bounced off of him. It. Whatever. "Oh oh. I think we need something pointy."

It was kind of funny to watch the balloon man deflate and were it any other situation, Juka would have laughed out loud at it. Now, however, was the time for business not amusement and the business of the day included two things. First, he and Saph needed to get out of this twisted video game game maze and second, once they did get out of the maze, they had to kill Shin for creating it. Because Juka knew the triangle man was certain to be getting a sadistic pleasure out of their suffering.

The moment Saph picked up the drill thing, Juka felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was not going to end well, strange buttons should not simply be pushed. Of course, if he were in the same situation he would have done the exact same thing because strange buttons, of course, presented an unignorable allure, but that clearly was not the point. The moment Saph did press the button, we went careening up through the dirt, until the sun could be seen through the long upward tunnel and Juka floated after him, stopping as soon as he was back above solid ground. "Well, I guess that answers the question about what the button does."

A glance at the sky clock showed Juka that their time was beginning to run out and they only had 5 minutes left. With a shrug, he followed Saph into yet another green tunnel, hoping that this time they wouldn't be confronted with fire breathing and drill wielding balloon people. On the positive side, they most certainly were not confronted with any more balloon people. On the negative side, they were confronted with a giant monkey dropping barrels down a slanted hallway, right at them.

Juka knew this giant monkey very well and his name was Donkey Kong. Taking a look high above, Juka noticed a giant red button on a platform next to the giant monkey. "Hold tight," Juka told Saph, hoping the other man would be able to continue jumping until he reached the button which he could only hope would cause the monkey to plummet to his doom. The barrels, of course, were no threat to the floating bubbler who simply floated over them with no risk to himself. Part way up, however, he was confronted with another problem, this one in the form of birds, each with two balloons strapped to their back. Birds that were now proceeding to divebomb Juka.

"Shin, I am going to kill you as soon as I find you," Juka yelled out, dodging the first bird that came at him.