Rivka tapped the code her math teacher had given her, and walked cautiously into the Danger Room. She'd heard rumors, or stories really, about the Danger Room. Each story seemed more outlandish than the last - being chased by robots, shot at with missiles, and someone said something about being used as the ping pong ball? Oh, and someone else also mentioned killer death robot dinosaurs! Then, another friend had said something about "watch out for Death by Cuteness" and wouldn't say anything more - she just smirked. But the best "help" she'd gotten? Someone told her, never, ever, tell Gawain her favorite movie. Ever. Then oystered up. Wait... Clammed! Clammed up. Clam, oyster, whatever! 

What she saw was a big, blank, empty gymnasium, except for a computer panel on one wall. Well lit, but, pretty boring. The floor seemed spongy, like the padding used in a martial arts studio, but other than that, there basically wasn't much here. Mr. Tetsuya had told her that the best way to learn to use her powers was getting out there and just doing so, preferably when something was going on as it was easy to use your powers in the living room but not so much the field. What he'd said made sense, as much as he sounded like her dad dragging her to a krav maga session with him. She rolled her green eyes at the mere thought of that. 

Rivka crossed her arms to wait, still feeling uneasy despite the lack of anything threatening. Had they been pulling her foot? Wait, that didn't sound right she thought. She took out her phone, and began tapping, looking up the America slang phrase. Leg! Pulling her Leg! Right. Well, as long as it didn't feature mice, she'd be fine she figured. She was dressed in a training uniform, black and yellow and made of a synthetic material she'd been told was extremely strong and durable. Catsuit was her own first impression of it, so she'd added a short black skirt to it, to make it seem a bit more modest. 

Unsure what to do next, and still left to her own devices, she approached the computer panel, which had a number pad and display but not much else. She typed in the code she'd been given. The lights dimmed, and a voice said "System Active. Ready for request".

Rivka turned in a circle, looking for the source of the voice, which sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once, even though she couldn't see any speakers. Feeling nervous, she bit her lip a little, and just stood there, waiting. She edged backwards until she had her back to the wall, just in case something suddenly burst forth to wait for her teacher. 

Tetsuya Shinbo

Had someone said the lights had dimmed? Well then, they dimmed further. The room grew dark, and in the darkness... a door slid open with a puffing sound like air being moved and metal parts sliding smoothly into, and out of, place. And from the sound of the air and the sliding came another sound— the sound of clinking and clanking, like heavy plate armor.

There was the sound of steel being drawn against steel. By now, the girl was either really confused, really scared, or sighing heavily after having figured the whole thing out.

Her teacher had arrived early. Early. He had hid out in the God room, which was the room above it all with the glass window high on one wall. The window had been masked. The door to the God room by the panel had been masked. And the teacher? Also masked.

In the darkness, a dull gold glow came to life. And as armor continued to clink and clank, the light kindled on the armored figure’s form. The light revealed... well, it revealed something straight from a Japanese television show.

It was like Power Rangers, but for adults. An entire genre built around special effects. The show was about a man in a flowing white coat who went around hunting demonic horrors. When push came to shove, he’d swing his sword in a circle in the air above his head, and in the ring of light the blade cast, he would transform.

He’d don the golden armor of a knight, with a fearsome lion-shaped helmet with pointed ears and a toothsome sneer. The golden knight “GARO!” Which meant fanged wolf in Japanese, even though the armor was for a lion knight (which was a weird naming convention, but who cared?). Then, he’d have like 66.6 seconds to swing his giant sword and kill whatever creepy crawly demon thing or giant clown or scary giant naked lady had decided to be the Monster of the Week for that episode, and because 66.6 was a SUPER edgy and oddly specific duration for his magical transformation, he’d win the day and kill the thing!!! Except when sometimes, he needed to get a magic horse and an even bigger sword, or do it all without his Super Armor because he was the hero, even in his skivvies. And Shin has worked real hard to use his mutant power to create an accurate and battle-ready bulletproof cosplay of the whole thing (with his mind). Complete with the giant black and gold sword.

He was glowing. His costume was glowing. A golden glow. A shining light in the dark. His sword was drawn when he charged at Rivka, and Shin let out a roar. The roar was the Danger Room’s queue to activate the scenario.

A feminine danger room voice announced “Engaging Scenario: explosions.”

The red flare of a massive explosion bloomed behind the golden lion knight as he pretended to swing his sword at the teenage girl. The best way to learn how to use one’s powers was to get out and use them. Especially in situations well out of one’s comfort zone. He’d stop the swing before it hit. Of course he would. But he wanted to see how she reacted before he did.

Explosions continued to explode in the background of the danger room. Non-lethal, highly flashy explosions. The Tokusatsu movie and television genre was all about flashy special effects. Just ask Godzilla in little Tokyo with his radioactive laser beam. Or the Power Ranger robot. Or Shin.

Rivka's green eyes got big as saucers as things began to happen. When the lion knight began to charge, she took the most natural and realistic of actions.

"AAAhhhhhhaaaaaa!"

Yes, she screamed and ran, though to her credit, she did both more or less at the same time. After a second or two of freaking out, she moved on to 'wait... I'm supposed to be using my power!'  That's when she pulled out her bottle of bubble solution from a specifically tailored belt pouch. Some heroes carried grappling hooks or boomerangs; Rivka carried bubbles. She preferred the commercial stuff you got in the toy aisle as it made better bubbles and was generally a little easier to work with than regular soap. 

That is, unless you're running like crazy from a real-life armored anime character, with explosions all about. Then the tendency is to start to spill the stuff down the sides of the plastic bottle. That, in turn, makes the thing slippery as snot. So, her dropping it might be understandable, even though she had managed to finally fish the wand out of the thing and still had hold of that. 

She had the Economy sized bottle of the stuff, and when the bottle hit the ground, it split neatly down the seam, sending the slippery stuff over a fairly large area of the floor. Rivka had no idea the mess she'd left behind her as she kept right going, whipping the wand through the air to get some sort of bubble she could work with! 



Tetsuya Shinbo

He inspired fear... which he’d kind of been going for, but no, not really. The student screamed, and ran. Or rather, she screamed and ran, simultaneously. Which was something, at least. And she had not fainted. He purposefully missed his swing as he moved to follow her, moving the blade in an exaggerated whiff.

When one fights, it’s hard to notice every single detail. Even with all the adrenaline making one’s brain work faster, it doesn’t always work smarter. And noticing every single detail in the dark isn’t something a normal human can do.

As Rivka ran, Shin did not notice her fumbling with a bubble bottle, or the bobble of the bubble bottle. The bubble bobble oil slick solution did not meet his notice, even when an explosion cast a brief sheen across the area. In her dark catsuit, she hardly met his notice. He’d largely been going off of where he knew she’d been moments prior, and... sound.

If she’d wanted, Rivka probably could have hid in the darkness. She could have run away every time an explosion lit the area, or used the momentary obliteration of his night vision against him. Instead, she pulled something out of a Looney Tune. He chased her, right into the Acme brand hazard.

Contrary to popular belief, armor hard as diamonds isn’t unbeatable. Armor hard as diamonds and composed of billions of tiny triangular razor blades stacked in geometric patterns specially designed not to shred the enemy or the wearer... can be fractured. And if the armor isn’t easily fractured, then the concentration certainly can be broken.

Shin slipped. His arms windmilled for a second as he tried to out-slick the slick. He wasn’t smooth enough. He failed. He fell. He hit the ground, hard.

Maybe it was the explosions. Maybe he was distracted. Maybe his ass hurt and his head had thumped the ground at just the right angle. Maybe it was all the things combined, but as he hit the ground, his concentration faltered and the golden armor vanished with a tinkle like fine glass shattering into powder. As a bubble appeared in the air nearby, all the Asian could think of was the one time he’d dropped a glass ornament during Christmas. It was that kind of sound. Unfortunate, and sudden.

He lay there, in blue jeans and a black t-shirt with a glow-in-the-dark triangular prism refracting light into a rainbow. Pink Floyd’s album cover for Dark Side of the moon. Explosions continued to rock the room. Almost as much as the album had rocked the world.

Rivka thought she heard something behind her as she finally managed to get a bubble and get control of it. But with the explosions and all, the sound was initially pretty much lost on her. 

She successfully jumped into her bubble, which was her most basic move, the bubble increasing in size to hold her. The feeling was different this time though, as she jumped into it, with an odd 'plop!' sound. It was what was supposed to be a Travel bubble, which she'd developed shortly after her arrival. They were tougher and longer-lasting, though not really suited to combat. Still, her plan was to simply have it hover safely above everything happening down low. She'd be safe - as long as he couldn't fly. Or jump for that matter. Mutants were a diverse lot in their abilities. 

Once above the explosions, she was able to look down, and see the cause of the earlier noise. Oh dear... All she could guess was that her teacher must have gotten caught in one of his own explosions! He didn't look too good though, so Rivka went to jump out of her bubble so she could check on him. That was when things got "interesting", at least for her. She tried bubble-jump out of her bubble, and the effect was sort of like walking into a rubber wall. She wound up on her rear on the bottom of her own bubble. She tried again, but again found she couldn't leave her bubble. 

A little worried, she had her bubble move down just above her teacher. She was on her hands and knees from her most recent attempt to get out, so she was able to get somewhat face to face. 
"Are... okay? Mr Tetsuya?" she asked hesitantly. What was she going to do if he wasn't? She was sort of stuck, after all. 

”Lights on. Simulation, end.” Shin said, to the ceiling.

The lights came on. The simulation ended. His student had drifted down to him some time after he’d fallen on his back. He wasn’t 21 any more. Shin would feel it in the morning. He’d only ended the situation after she had asked if he was okay. Now that the lights were on, he could see her more clearly.

The Asian frowned thoughtfully at the girl in the bubble. It triggered a memory for him, one of an old friend. A Japanese man like him, but more fabulous, with long red hair and (more often than not), white makeup like a KISS concert alongside dark eyeshadow.

”You wouldn’t happen be related to someone named Juka, would you?” He said lightly. ”Long red hair. Travels in bubbles. Carries anvils. In bubbles. Immortal bubbles of Youth? No?” He frowned, answering for her. ”Maybe I just hit my head.”

He was still on his back, which wasn’t a great place to be. Thankfully, he’d turned off the explosions. Perhaps that hadn’t been the best scenario for a beginner. What had even been the goal?

He noted unhappily that soapy bubble juice was soaking into his backside, and working its way through his shirt.

”Nice trick with the bubble formula, Miss Road Runner. I feel like a suuuper genius.” He made no move to get up.

"Am sorry. No mean spill" she said honestly, still floating above Shin in her bubble, while down on her hands and knees. "Would help up... but am stuck?" she said with a frown. 

Shani stood up, and pushed on the wall of the bubble with little effect. Next she tried jumping up and down, and when that failed in frustration she punched the wall. It gave very slightly, but was more or less like punching a mining conveyor belt and she shook then cradled her hand which now hurt. 

"No think I meet friend Juka" she told him, though she was busy looking all around her trying to figure out how to escape this prison of her own creation. Anvils? Weren't those what bugs built on the ground? It didn't make much sense, but she was getting used to a lot of mutation stuff not making sense, at least at first. Maybe she controlled insects in addition to floating in bubbles? That would be cool! Maybe someday I'll control butterflies! Shani thought. 

The bigger problem was more immediate, and that was getting out of this bubble. Especially since she had been in a hurry to get her, and really should have stopped to pee first, she now realized. 

"Mr Tetsuya? Can please make bubble? Maybe I jump that one, then out?" she suggested, since this one seemed to be defective. 

He understood power malfunctions in a way that most other mutants would never get, having himself lost the largest part of his mutation for several years. Thus, he didn’t look at her with annoyance, or think the girl spinning and flailing in her bubble was comical. Hadn’t his friend Juka also gotten stuck in a bubble at some point? He couldn’t remember if he remembered that from direct knowledge, or from hearing it around the school.

Step one: Get stuck in time bubble. Step two: Ascend to godhood. Step three: Step four: Profit. Maybe that had been the joke.

She didn’t know Juka. Jokes didn’t matter.

She hadn’t meant to spill the soap and trip him. He supposed that didn’t matter, either. No super strategy here, folks. Just Looney Tunes.

Meep meep.

The fact he’d trailed about comical anvils one minute prior did not escape Shin. Maybe they were all cartoon characters, when it came right to it. It’s teenage mutant ninja turtles all the way down.

She asked if he could make a bubble, and the Asian looked at the broken bottle. He wasn’t sure that idea would yield anything of merit. Shin raised his eyes to the girl in the bubble.

”Not sure I can get enough soap together to make a bubble. Could probably pop yours. Could probably catch you.” His voice shifted to a thoughtful tone. ”Though, this being practice and all, maybe you should try to figure out a solution on your own...”

He could leave for some bubble solution. He could also try and get the room to generate something. It probably had a bubble machine. It could do everything else under the sun, couldn’t it? He was fairly certain somewhere in its circuits and machinery, it had a kitchen sink.

Shani looked skeptical. Normally, if she wanted to jump out, she just thought about it, and there she was. For some reason that wasn't working this time. She decided to concentrate on the soap solution slowly spreading on the floor. Maybe if she tried to make that her landing spot? She scrunched up her face in concentration, and tried to jump out. She could feel herself wanting to move, she thought, but for some reason it didn't work. 

She did seem to be able to get the thing to move around as she wished. She floated a little up, then a little down. Maybe... she floated up higher, and rushed the thing at the floor. 
Bwong! 
She wound up plastered to the bottom of the bubble as it bounced off the floor, and back into the air. It made a second, lesser bounce before she got control of it again. The bubble seemed no worse for the wear, but Rivka was a bit shook up from the experience. She pushed her hair out of her face, her frustration showing on her features. 

"I no think I can get out. Please, try pop? Where you want?" she asked her teacher, vexed with being stuck in her own darn bubble.



ooc: you can assume she'll move the bubble to wherever you want it. Floor, above you, or whatever.

They continued with the comical, as she rammed the bubble into the floor and it bounced like a super ball, back into the air. Popping it herself was no good, then. At least, how she wanted to pop it.

She asked where he wanted her, and the Asians brow furrowed as he contemplated the best solution.

“Wait a second,” Shin said.

The best solution, obviously, was for her to put the bubble as close to the floor as possible and then for him to walk over and poke it with a finger. If that didn’t pop it, he’d slash it with a razor sharp triangular barrier. Or several. He had the control. Simple was good. Far better than asking her to wait while he made a triangle-shaped platform in the air below her and asked her to land on it gently, so he could send a single shard around the radius of the bubble, like a shark fin circling a drowning swimmer, and cut the bubble’s underside apart. Like a can lid under the toothy expertise of an electric can opener.

“I’m going to make a triangular platform in the air beneath you. Try and land on it, or as close to it as you can. And keep your arms and legs away from the sides of your bubble. I’ll cut the bubble open.”

He focused for several seconds, then a red triangle shaped platform appeared in the air near the bubble. It was large enough to stand on, probably 4 feet to a side. An equilateral triangle.

Once the girl had landed, he did the thing with the single shard traveling in a circle beneath the bubble alongside the top of the shard. It swept around twice, in rapid succession as he suppressed the Jaws theme in his head. Then, the tiny triangle sink back into the larger triangle. The girl was still about six feet off the ground.