Gawain rolled his shoulders as he walked into the Danger Room. Today, he was not training Alice, or any of the other students; he was not getting beaten up by Sam while working some personal issues out, and he was also not bringing in a girl he was kinda sorta trying to impress.
Today, it was simple, classic, unadulterated Danger Room time. Lasers, spinning blades, giant robot arms. The works. The room still had the mechanics for it, despite all the hard light updates it had gotten over the years. Shin discovered the setting recently, and invited Mirror, a teammate he did not often get the chance to work with, to give the Old School DR a spin. Between the two of them, it was bound to be clean, wholesome X-men entertainment.

Or they might get their *sses cooked by laser beams.
They wouldn't know until they tried.

Tetsuya Shinbo

Shin dressed in exercise shorts and a tank top. It was summer. He didn't feel like bringing workout clothes and work clothes and danger room clothes, so hed cut out the last detail.

He wasn't sure what all he'd do against crazy sawblade arms and whatnot. Lotta dodging. A whole lot of running. That'd keep him fit. He probably needed the exercise, what with all his sitting around grading work.

He arrived just a few minutes after Mirror did, and nodded to the gender shifter. Seemed today it was a Gawain day. He greeted the man, and said he was ready for some danger room fun.

"Oh, hey Shin" Gawain grinned, turning to see his teammate who was dressed for leisurely exercise. Workouts were good, and people needed them for various reasons besides staying in shape for the next mission. In this case, Gawain's excuse was 'checking if the mechanical systems in the DR still worked', which looked better in the log than 'wanted to dodge robot arms.'

"Ready for some old school training?" he grinned at Shin "From back in the olden days where people had the crazy idea that we'd be fighting things like robots, and laser weapons?... Oh wait..."

"Yep!" Shin grinned at Gawain. "Though maybe start out slow and work up from there? To test out machine responses... and our responses. Probably going for a minimalist approach today."

Minimalist approach was Shin code for 'I won't be summoning a lot of triangles for reasons.' He'd be doing a lot of running and jumping and dodging. He'd have to be clever and careful. They were just testing the danger room, though.

Theoretically, you don't aim to break the things you're testing.

It's also valid to note that robotic arms made of metal are a lot more dangerous than constructs made of hard light. And you can't just end a scenario and stop everything in a split second.

Mirror would likely be fine here. A lot of these arms were all chrome and shiny. He'd polished them himself. Or had a cleaning robot do it. But Shin? He'd be having a challenge.

Gawain nodded. Minimalist approach. Powers used only when absolutely necessary, and DR set to Easy, for a warm-up anyway, before they broke out (or broke) all the crazy mechanical stuff built in there. Since the old system was not voice-commanded, Gawain had a remote set on his wrist. He finished rolling his shoulders and glanced over at Shin, nodding to show that he was ready, before punching a few things on his wrist.

"Okay, let's start nice and slow then. I set it to Eas..."

The whirring noise came only seconds before the robotic arms rose up from the walls, floor, and ceiling, and the entire DR began to rumble from the energy behind the mechanisms. Two of the nearest arms sprang blades, and slashed at Gawain and Shin, marking them as the moving targets withing the room.

"Whoa!"

When Gawain had been stretching, Shin had decided that was a good idea, and had started stretching, himself. Arms in front of chest, then over heads. Then, he'd bent down to touch his toes. He caught the nod just as his body started the transition from upright to bent down, doubled. It probably saved his life.

When the blades flashed out at Gawain and him, it was easy to turn a bent toe-touching endeavor into a forward roll. The roll took the Asian down and out of the blades paths. He caught himself a split second before his roll took him to the edge of a suddenly-opening trap door, and he slowed his roll. Threw himself to one side and away from the spiked pit. Shin landed crouched, on one knee.

"Good lord!" Shin swore as he watched Gawain's progress for a moment. "If this is easy, I hate to imagine hard!"

He pulled his wedding ring off his ring finger and let it hover near his head, ready for anything.

The action was immediate and definitely lethal. Gawain ducked and rolled, and so did Shin, unfortunately in two different directions. Shin narrowly avoided a pit trap full of spikes, while the mirrorwalker jumped over another blade trying to cut his legs, and landed near a robot arm trying to grab him. Bobbing side to side out of the way, he heard Shin swearing.

>>"Good lord! If this is easy, I hate to imagine hard!"

"Who the hell designed this thing?!" Gawain protested, sliding under the robot arm and almost hit with some kind of a flailing device "This is... definitely... not... student friendly! You okay?"

"Its just a flesh wound!" Shin announced. He'd stuffed an arm up inside his shirt so it was hidden, while Gawain was most thoroughly distracted. Always time for ill timed humor, in his book. Shin faked mock horror, then pushed the arm back out again just in time to nearly lose it for real. He reeled back and danced across the Danger Room in full reverse.

This old scenario was scary. Like, the kind of scary he wouldn't mind summoning a long sword and cutting through. Of course, he didn't really have that capability currently, and the fact that it was real meant damaging equipment would really take time to fix. And cost the mansion real cash money. With those things in mind, the traditional danger room UI seemed preferable. Even if he had a tendency to make it summon giant robots or scenes from his favorite shows.

The Asian evaded a snaking tentacle arm with a nasty three-clawed pincher on its end. Why did tentacles always gravitate towards people of his ethnicity? That felt like some kind of robotic form of profiling.

Shin turned left, then faked right, only to shoot past it on the other side, beneath its guard. He got to daylight, then turned just in time to stare a laser gun right in the ruby red lens of an eye as it snapped out from a hatch in a wall. His wedding ring shot forward, and through, the glass of the eye. It hit like a bullet, and came out the way it had come in, flashing back towards him to land in Shin's outstretched hand.

Definitely not student-friendly, he agreed.

>>"Its just a flesh wound!"

Gawain turned to look at Shin goofing off with one arm in his coat; the lack of blood spurting kinda gave the joke away, but he grinned anyway, entertained by a combination of excitement over the retro tech, and sheer adrenaline.

"Bite their legs off!" he called out before he ducked under the blades and came up on the other side. Shin did the same dance, moving to the other side of the DR. Gawain saw the flash of red as the laser gun appeared, and gasped a split second before Shin shot the thing clear through. There were sparks and the thing drooped towards the ground. "Nice shot! That's gonna cost..." he noted, a moment before the ground disappeared form beneath his feet.

One of the sneaky tentacle arms managed to wrap itself around Gawain's ankles, and lifted him into the air, dangling upside down in no apparent fashion. It could have smashed him against the wall or something, but it did not. So far, so good. Sadly, it was also not shiny enough for Gawain to teleport. Curling up to his feet, the mirrorwalker tried to force the coils apart. "Seriously?!"

He never found out how much exactly one laser beam cost, because Mirror got caught up by a giant metal tentacle. It seemed Shin wasn't the only X-men the tentacles liked today.

Gawain was airborne, upside down. Blood was likely rushing to his ears that very moment. He could not force it open by bare strength, likely, and it looked like-- Shin squinted. Yeah. It looked like it was too dirty to use as a mirror.

Shin too three rapid steps forward out of the way of a giant metal arm as it crashed down behind him. He kept going towards Mirror, cupping his hands to shout. "I'll break you free! Just wait a minute!"

It had been several years since he'd used jujitsu on a robot, but he figured he was still about as strong as he'd been in his youth. If they both tried to force the thing open, they could free Gawain. Or maybe. A second idea struck him. He paused his run, and changed directions. If he couldn't brute force the danger room into oblivion, maybe he could turn it against itself.

An arm with a sawblade on its end caught sight of him... somehow. It snaked after him as he ran towards Gawain. He wasn't sure how he did it, but with some creative evasion the Asian lured the saw arm near enough to take a swipe at him, and sever the tentacle arm holding Mirror, instead.

>>"I'll break you free! Just wait a minute!"

Gawain definitely had a minute. He had all the time in the world, actually, since it was clear he was not going to force his way out of this trap alone. He dangled upside down, watching Shin dodge and run, wondering what exactly he had in mind for defeating the robotic tent...

"Ow!" Gawain landed with a thump on the floor, kicking wildly to shake the severed coils of the tentacle off his ankles. A robotic arm had missed Shin and cut the tentacle instead. Apparently, their programming and sensors were not that great... Gawain lifted his arm to change some settings.

"Um... Shin? We got a problem..."

He had landed on his side. The wrist remote was pretty much ruined.

(Ooc minor God mode, I hope it was alright. I can edit if you want.))

Well, damn. It looked like the wrist watch was wrecked. What a shame. Hadn't Mirror said the watch was the only way to control the old room? Why had someone created a control method that wasn't triple redundant? Backups of backups of backups. This was a dangerous room. And they were fighting it. Why wouldn't someone anticipate the control watch being b0rked.

There were now limited options. -- Shin rushed to help Gawain to his feet, then turned and hauled them both bodily away from that saw arm... which was still snaking nearby. The options were simple. Break all the things. Beat the scenario by lasting however long it wanted them to last. Or figure out how to beat the danger room at its own game.

"Maybe we can use voice commands and make the Danger rooms fight. Old versus new." he said. "Was that the only control unit? Can it be controlled from the God room or a wall unit? Or are we --" He paused to break away from Mirror as the saw blade slashed downwards between where they both were. He assumed Mirror would dodge in the opposite direction of him. "Going to have to break it all." He finished mildly, landing on one knee in a crouch. He looked to Mirror for suggestions and thoughts.

Gawain found himself vertical again, once Shin got him on his feet and away from the robot arm that was still busy looking for things to hack and slash. Geez, someone did not have mutant kids in mind when they designed this thing... Gawain swore as he poked at the writs band, but it seemed to be completely dead.

>>"Maybe we can use voice commands and make the Danger rooms fight. Old versus new."

"Not a bad idea" Gawain noted, raising his voice "Danger Room, give me a..."

Mechanical setting override. Hard light structures unavailable.

"... well, crap."

>>"Was that the only control unit? Can it be controlled from the God room or a wall unit? Or are we --"

Shin's sentence was cut in half by yet another robot arm. Gawain lunged in the opposite direction, coming up in a roll as the blade bit into the floor. This thing was clearly not above damaging itself.

"Third Law of Robotics, dammit!"

>>"Going to have to break it all."

"Yeah. Let's break it all." Gawain agreed. With so many moving panels, the only reflecting surface was on the far walls, but it had to be enough. Gawain took a running start, sliding over blades and vaulting over arms, trying to make it to the spot that was shiny enough to walk into. The Danger Room was not going to make it easy...

That... just didn't work. Voice commands, blocked? How evil. The person who had designed this particular mode of the Danger Room was some kind of sadist. Shin had to wonder who would do that? A mutant whose power involved being lonely and technologically adept? A giant gorilla? He had no idea. Whoever it was, however, did not want them to win any way but the old fashioned way.

"Now, how were people expected to win this before they invented the watch...?" The Asian wondered aloud.

Well. It was apparent that DJ Roomba would be footing the bill for several Danger Room repairs this week. Shin hoped the robot's allowance was enough. He wasn't about to ask the actual headmaster for a handout. It was always so hard to communicate from one to the other. Each one had their own little agenda. His twins never knew what the other was doing until they merged.

Break it all. Break it all.

He rushed past the crazy tentacle arms, tripped a trip wire on the floor, and narrowly avoided a genuine Ewok-grade swinging log trap, then slid like a baseball player, underneath another laser beam gun. He grabbed it where it connected to the arm extending out the panel on the wall, turned, and started forcing fire on the various arms and traps he'd just avoided. It was a real good thing he practiced running every day.

Arms exploded in showers of sparks. One, two, three arms, down. The Danger Room seemed to sense what Shin was doing, because the moment he turned the laser gun on the log trap, it brought up a mirrored panel from somewhere in the floor. The panel stood in front of the log trap like a shield. The Asian smirked. Oh, they'd made a mistake.

"Mirror!" Shin shouted. "Mirror!" He nodded towards the panel standing in the middle of the room. "Maybe we can use that somehow?"

>>"Now, how were people expected to win this before they invented the watch...?"

"Must have had some responsible teacher type in the God Room?" Gawain ventured, rolling on the floor to avoid a laser shot that left a burnt mark on the coverings. That was the only possible explanation: Once upon a time, the DR was a dangerous (and expensive) business, and therefore required constant supervision by a responsible adult who would watch over every training scenario.
Sadly, the X-team was kind of short on responsible adults at the moment.

Gawain tried to make it to the far wall, but his beeline was disrupted by some robot arms with blades. He ducked out of the way of one and managed to hold on to the other long enough that it jerked up and launched himself into another corner of the DR. More laser shots were fired as Shin went on his own rampage.

>>"Mirror! Mirror! Maybe we can use that somehow?"

Gawain turned to see the large reflecting surface between Shin's laser and a trap. If he could make it, he could get to the God room... the mirrorwalker lunged in that direction, vaulting over a pit trap... just to have the floor rise under his feet, trying to tilt him backwards into the pit anyway. "Whoa!"