Hedging Bets (Kasumi)

>>"I am ready when you are."

"Good," Shin replied with a wry smile. "Though somehow, I highly doubt you'll be prepared for the many levels of 'awesome' I've dreamed up. First things first, though..." Shin took a few steps towards Kasumi, away from the hedge maze. A strong gust of 'wind' blew past him, causing the sunflowers in the 'field' behind to dance.

"Are you really certain you want this? To become an X-men, I mean... I'd worry about you, Kasumi." Shin's eyes were soft, pleading for the truth. He just needed the truth from her lips once. After that, he'd be ready to move on.

Shin placed hand to his head with a fabulous sigh, and drew closer. A wry look played at his cheeks. "I see. That's too bad. I'd wanted to protect you from all this, but I understand. After all, I feel the same." He raised his head to look towards the heavens, and spoke proudly. "That's what we have to do, isn't it? Show the world our kind are just as good as any other. To set examples, save a few lives..." His focus dropped to Kasumi's eyes, and he nodded once. "If we're gonna do this, then all I've left to say is this."

He rushed forward to plant a quick kiss on her cheek, then ran backwards into the maze with a wave. "Tag!"

She was it. The maze shifted up around him as Shin stumbled back through the quickly-rising walls of green. The goal of this training session was simple: It was a game of catch. She'd have to navigate the ever-shifting maze of hedge-walls, overcome the various perils. Sandtraps, swinging logs, trap doors, the works. All for the sole purpose of catching up to Shin.

Shin thought it'd be a pretty fun training session, if he didn't say so himself.

Right now, the maze was in its simplest form. The walls towered two stories high, and cast the paths of the hedge maze in a light shadow. Shin had taken the path to the right. Upon entering, there was a fork. From there, the path grew more convoluted. She'd probably be able to scale the walls of brush to get a better view of it all... but that didn't mean that up on top of the world she'd be any safer.

((OOC Note: If you can conceive of a boobytrap to throw into the maze and navigate around, be my guest~))

Oh, double-bladed swords. How well you cut! While once this idea had been so amazing, so utterly brilliant he had rushed from his seat behind the desk of Sam's office to the danger room's God room to code it in post-haste... now he was worried it might be the sort of code he spelled posthumously. First, with the swinging pendulum blade like a mouse in cat fangs, then the moving wall that shoved him across a pungee pit of spikes... he narrowly avoided becoming a human skewer, thanks to outstretched arms and upper-body strength. Now, Asian shoulder blades were slumped against a wall, hiding, biding, vying for time.

A deep breath displayed the health of 20-something shard-summoning mutants well. Chest, rise, chest fall. Less than five minutes of running, a few death-defying feats of 'save-one's-own-arse', and this was what his current health status showed? Winded after a trice?

It just wouldn’t do. He’d been slacking ever since he’d gotten that cast, hadn’t he? Fewer five mile runs with Thor, more donuts and coffee on-break. You’re slipping, old man. Shin thought to himself. Like a father who couldn’t keep up with their own son in a game of round-ball. Couldn’t make it to the hoop. His left-handed dribble was akin to spittle on the chin of a toddler, and that just wasn’t right! And his spin? Never in.

The ball Did Fall Elsewhere from the hoop.

Shin got to his feet with a pact in-heart. Double the training! No, TRIPLE!! He’d train until he was falling after this… but maybe for the moment, a bit of a respite? He slumped back down against the wall with a head rush.

Oh right. Falling. Eheh~

Maybe he’d practice a bit of what he was practicing a few days prior with Koga…? Riding a platform of shards… Shin hopped to his feet, bracing himself against the bushy green of the hedge as he focused.

Called the image of a simple three-dimensional pane of glass in his mind. Half an inch thick, green, three feet wide and long… yes. That’d work. With a couple layers of shards to contribute to the overall lifting strength… He’d learned an awful lot about strength from his time spent in the body of Abyss. Red giants and their ridiculously overpowered arm muscles made any learning experience wonderful~

~*~

A beautiful blue jay landed with a tweet on the top of one bush on Kasumi’s left. It preened for a moment, sang a little song, and elsewhere behind it a tiny speck rose like a fly over garbage: Shin on his shard-platform had taken flight.

And honestly, the reflection off that shard platform could catch anyone’s eye. Even the blue jay’s, actually.

Head, tweet, turn~!

The ground passed underneath Shin's feet like the slides on a film projector. Empty labyrinth slide, empty labyrinth slide, empty labyrinth slide, Kasumi... wait, Kasumi? He blinked at the frog girl as she sprang up onto the bottom of his shard from somewhere far below. That was... unexpected. He nearly fell back as he momentarily lost his balance, but hey. Arms swung to right themselves, and he was fine. Shin smiled at her.

"Hey. Nice trick." He nodded down at her, sitting there on his shard all cute, like Jasmine on Aladdin's flying carpet.

>>"Kind of did a really long leap things and ended up landing here." She laughed and rubbed the back of her head. "I stick really good to your shards to let you know."

"That's good! Wouldn't want you falling-- off." He paused as Kasumi rushed forward to peck him on the cheek.

>>"Tag!" She hopped back down.

He wobbled backwards again as something shifted in the labyrinth below. Balance was still not so good for him on the shards, it seemed. But better than the session with Koga. He'd trained a lot since then.

Shin glanced down, searching the ground for Kasumi's landing spot.

"... Hmm. Nowhere to be seen. Wait. What's..."

The 'something' roared and tore through a wall of the hedge maze near Kasumi. It walked on two bulky legs, with the head of a bull and the body of a man. Rippling muscles, red fireballs for eyes. Steam shot from its nostrils. It looked deranged.

Shin gasped as he shot down towards Kasumi on his shard platform. The minotaur swung its right arm violently-- Shin scooped her up at the last minute! He swept past the minotaur, onwards into the labyrinth. The bullheaded monster ROARED. Shin looked back over his shoulder as he rose to land on the wall of a hedge, then looked at Kasumi.

"Are... are you alright?"

He hadn't programed a minotaur, had he? Inwardly, he sighed. Either his programming skills were a monumental failure, or the danger room had it out for him. As the minotaur stomped towards them, Shin got the feeling it was the latter...

Slowed down, yes! But raging! Raging!! BLIND WITH RAGE! (Also blind.) The Danger Room works wonders with allowing powers that would not usually work on computer programs... to indeed work on computer programs. The Minotaur rubbed its eyes, stomped a few times, and roared like a kitten. Then it turned towards them, fingers straining towards the slightest sound.

"Mad... right." Shin's brow furrowed in worry. He glanced at Kasumi, remembering from her files that her poison was potent, yet draining. Damn... He shook his head. She'd given her all and exhausted herself, but that thing was still going strong. Stomping, roaring, hissing at the sky.

"How are you now?" He asked. Shards clamped down on his feet like buckles as he steadied them, and rose on the platform.

He lifted his hands, calling up another bevy of shards. He forced them towards the minotaur quickly, a hail of razor-sharp diamond edges!! The beast screamed in pain, drumming his chest as Shin and Kasumi floated away...

She was okay. That was good. A weight lifted off Shin's back as he floated over the beast, almost gloating.

Swoop, swoop went the hands of groping blindness. The minotaur swung up at them, but Shin was high and out of reach. For the moment, they were safe. But still...

that monster was chasing them. It had been for the last minute. Ever since Shin had floated away, which obviously meant it was stronger than they'd thought, and quickly recovering.

Still blind, but... damn. It crashed through another wall, and Shin glanced back at it.

There were so many ways this simulation could end. It could end with him canceling it. Now, there was an option! But that option was boring, and would end everything too soon. There... was the option they could fight the minotaur, but...

He looked back, firing another storm of shards. The minotaur barreled through it, pained, but unfazed. "Jeez... it acts like an enraged bear... takes shot after shot, but keeps coming. Can't fight that head-on, so... Kasumi. We have to lure it into traps! I'll fly. You direct me. Be my eyes."

He rose higher over the labyrinth to give her a better view. Below, the Minotaur wrestled with a swinging log trap, and tore it from the wall. He swung it like a club.