It’d been a while since he’d done this. In fact the last time he’d done this it wasn’t even for him. He couldn’t even remember when the last time he’d actually trained in the Danger Room was. Streak had missed this place. After that ordeal with Lori he still didn’t have his powers back. It was getting ridiculous. After all, how could the Head of Security not have their powers? He looked at himself as not only an X-men charged with defending the innocent and getting mutant equality, but he also thought of himself as the first, well technically second, line of defense between the students and people that didn’t like their kind.

Streak took the long walk down to the Danger Room. It was quieter than he remembered, but it was something that would usually change as soon as he was involved in using the contraption. He really hoped that there wouldn’t be to many interruptions. However, he did welcome the interruption of a fellow X-men friend. Even if he didn’t have his powers he still needed to keep his skills honed for anything that might happen. Streak still considered himself a key part of the team, if not a little bit of a liability without his powers, but still vital nevertheless.

The doors opened for him and he entered the Danger Room’s nondescript metallic room. Streak remembered the last time that he had used this place. He was giving trials to some X-men candidates. He’d come up with some clever ideas and the candidates responses intrigued him. He missed a lot of the old members; they’d all disappeared and seemed to have moved on with their lives. Maybe they didn’t feel the same pull that he felt to stay here. Or maybe they found a better opportunity to live their lives than at the mansion.

Streak walked up to the God room and set up his first work out. It was a simple setting. A forest blossomed and grew to unbelievable heights, and animals started to fly around. Most people would have believed that they were actually in the rain forest. The silvermancer left the room and headed into the forest. It was peaceful to walk around in. he enjoyed looking at the plants that were there and the animals that would let you get closer to them than they really would in the wild, before they scurried away. The peacefulness wouldn’t last forever, and he knew it. Mainly because he’d written the program, but also because that’s just how things seemed to go.

It didn’t take long either, pretty soon he saw what he’d put in the program. A mutant seeking orb. All the safety features were on so he was sure that he wasn’t going to get hurt, the worst he might get would be a shock. Streak ran and hid behind a tree as the thing flew over him and away from where he was. Well that was easy. he thought as he waited to make sure the coast was clear.

Phase was very bored. Having dumped her duffel bag and backpack onto the side of the dorm she'd decided to claim, she'd waited for almost an hour for her roommate. Mostly to see who they were, even more to see what they were, and a little bit to see just how badly they'd wanted the side of the room she'd gone and claimed.

On the other hand, she didn't much feel like meeting some new person. For a lot of reasons.

So, after a few hours of doodling on her arm with a Sharpie and twiddling her thumbs, she decided she was going to explore her new home.

Most of it was the same, Victorian-esque narrow hallways, slathered in paintings of little ponds and prairies. It made her want to hit something. It looked just like the office of her Vocal Coach. And she learned to hate that place.

However, wandering footsteps brought her down a small flight of stairs and into something altogether totally different. It was more...spacey. Kind of like how you'd expect a 21st century bomb shelter to look. Of course, if they'd even bothered to make bomb shelters in the 21st century.

Phase heard the faint hiss of a sliding door opening. It couldn't have been too far away...around the corner at best. Silently, like a secret agent on assignment, she peered around the corner to see a mysterious man disappear into a nearby room. 'What the hell is this place?' she thought.

Sneaking behind him so as not to scare the guy, she followed him. Until she saw what was through the door. It was a huge, metal room, dome-shaped, with no apparent decoration except for a small podium in the middle, and a small set of windows about halfway up. As if entranced by the sudden appearance of such a room, she wandered towards the podium, ignoring the closing door behind her.

Suddenly, without any warning, the podium vanished. Not just the podium, the whole room. Everything seemed to melt away as trees, grass, and ferns sprouted from nowhere. Above her, a wide blue sky and faint, puffy clouds had simply...appeared.

Phase began to panic. "It's okay, it's okay," she mentally told herself. "I just walked in on some kind of hologram. Or something. That's all it is. It's all in your head. Just find the door..." She spun around to realize that the door had disappeared as well. The forest stretched for miles, even though the room hadn't been close to that big.

Phase cowered against a nearby tree. "What the hell is going on?" She kept thinking.

Streak had just dodged the first orb when he noticed that someone else had come into the Danger Room. He hadn't seen her when she walked in, otherwise he wouldn't have started it before he got a chance to explain it to her. Streak walked over to the girl, that was now cowering behind a tree. "Pause program." Streak said to the computer. Suddenly everything was moving seemed to stop.

"Sorry about that. I didn't realize you were in here. I'm Shawn." He didn't know this girl. She was definitely younger than him though and he figured that she was probably someone that either came here while he was out or had just arrived. The trees continued to move in the simulated wind. Even though he'd paused the simulation the only thing that really paused was the actual danger.

The silvermancer seemed unaware of the birds chirping and the all around outdoor feel that the room had created all to realistically. He'd spent so much free time in the Danger Room creating and thinking up new simulations for other mutants to train with. There were to many mutants to think up scenarios for every one but he did his best to come up with a great number of varieties.

"Pause program."

The sudden voice made Phase jump slightly. She glanced around the forest, trying to locate its owner. In the process, however, she noticed something even stranger.

Nothing was moving.

Literally, nothing. A few leaves that had been falling to the ground had just...stopped. And it wasn't just the leaves, it was everything. Birds, lizards, snakes...nothing moved. It was like someone had pushed the pause button on life's great remote.

"Sorry about that. I didn't realize you were in here"

The sudden reappearance of the voice both surprised and terrified her. She whipped around and began screaming, only to realize that there was no sound involved. Quickly, realizing how stupid she probably looked with her mouth hanging open, she shut it and stared calmly at the man in front of her.

God, she could be stupid sometimes.

"I'm Shawn."

She glanced him up and down shyly, still a little annoyed about having her mouth hanging open upon his first seeing her face. She briefly wondered just what level of stupid she looked like. But then other things dominated her field of view.

Namely this Shawn guy.

He was older than her by a few years. She landed his age somewhere in the late teens-early twenties. He was about her height, and she thanked the heeled sandals that gave her just enough extra height to be about his level. The last thing she noticed about him was his eye color. Silver eyes. It's not like she noticed too much. A number one, they were just eyes, and b number two, living in a family of mutants basically trains you to ignore little things like that.

She fished her little notepad from her back pocket, cursing her mother again for forcing her to buy the flower-pattern one. Flipping calmly to an empty page, she wrote as fast as she could before holding up the little note for Shawn to read.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to intrude. I just saw this place, got a little curious, and then this happened. Speaking of which, what is this place?"

Phase nervously rubbed her forehead as she held up the message, considering just how low she was stooping today. First person she meets here, and she makes a total idiot out of herself. Wonderful. Ever since this Shawn guy introduced himself...

She snapped back to reality. He'd introduced himself. She should probably introduce herself if she didn't want to look like a jerk as well as a bimbo. She quickly pulled back the notepad and scrawled a little footnote beneath her original message before sticking her pencil into her ear and holding the notepad back up.

"I'm Phase, by the way. Phase Larson."

Streak read the note that she held up for him. He didn't know that she couldn't talk. It would definitely make this conversation a little one sided; but at least she had something to write on. "It's fine... you're not the first person to wander into this place. It's called the Danger Room. Basically it's a very high tech simulator and can be programmed with basically anything."

He remembered the first time he'd come into the Danger Room. It was a very different experience than one that he was putting himself through now. "It's nice to meet you Phase. I didn't realize you were here or I wouldn't have started it right away." He looked around at the elaborate hologram that he'd come up with. It didn't take to much for him to create because he'd created this simulation a while ago for a group of X-men trials.

"This simulation is actually pretty basic. It's obviously a jungle; however, the trick to this is that there are a few orbs that seek out only mutants. These things wont hurt you, unless you're just clumsy. You want to stick around and try it out?" Streak explained what was going on in the room. He thought that she might like to know if she decided that she wanted to participate.

The Danger Room? Sounded like an appropriate name. It was so much better than the unpronounceable techy term she thought it had.

The concept was ridiculously mind-boggling. A giant room that can basically simulate anything...Phase immediately thought of the millions upon millions of fun scenarios she could build off it. It probably wasn't the best idea to start dreaming about programming this thing. After all, she and computers were like oil and water. But hey, at least she could dream.

"You want to stick around and try it out?"

Phase almost didn't hear the question the first time through. She had to piece together some of the words. When she finally did realize what exactly Shawn had said, there was simply no question in her mind about her answer. After all, this place was the coolest thing ever! She would have loved to see it in action. So duh she wanted to stick around.

Trying to communicate that fact wasn't so quick. She started to open her mouth for a big, loud, "HELL YEAH!" Of course, no sound. So she just smiled a little bit, nodded her head, and gave him a thumbs-up. Corny, yes, but not too bad under the circumstances.

Phase quickly realized a small complication, though. Which had to do with her outfit. Namely, her cute little button-up from Hollister and her denim Capris. Not something that one can fight in. Although...she could probably manage. The issue was her shoes. They were adorable little sandals with two-inch heels.

She got the feeling that this place involved lots of running.

So...crisis.

She quickly stuck her long red hair into a ponytail, then scribbled onto her famous notepad and held it up for Shawn to read.

"Is there a place where I can put my shoes?

"Ya you can put them over by the stairs. They won't go anywhere while were in the simulation." Streak said to her. Girls. I don't think I'll ever understand them. Always worried about shoes. He thought to himself as he waited for her to return without her shoes.

He was getting little impatient with waiting. Streak really wanted to do this simulation. He hadn't done one since before the occurrence and he was itching to try and get his powers back. Again, what good is a head of security at a mutant school and an X-men if he doesn't even have powers that he can use. He might as well be working at the mall as a local rent a cop. Even though he'd done his training with the police force he still didn't feel comfortable working with them. Shawn knew that there was a mutant division there but he was still skeptical about them.

Once she returned he said, "Ok, let's start. The idea of this is to not get caught and to destroy the orbs. They'll be able to find you whether you use your powers or you don't. It's more like they can sense the gene. If they catch you, you'll just get a little shock of electricity. Nothing super painful, more like a when you touch something metal in the cold whether and you get shocked from the static electricity." The trees started moving again and the breeze picked up. The simulated birds and other animals started to move around now and the only thing that was left to start back up was the orbs themselves. It wouldn't be long before they started to move also.

(OOC: feel free to start the simulation)

"You can put them over by the stairs.

Phase turned around, fixing her ponytail to add in stray bits of hair.

'What stairs?' Maybe he didn't realize that the place was still all foresty. There weren't any stairs in sight.

Phase made a snap decision and threw them in the general direction of where she thought she'd come from. They faded into nonexistence shortly thereafter. 'This place is absolutely incredible,' Phase couldn't help but think. Her mind casually wandered off on the idea of what might happen if you just ran. In one direction.

Reality pulled her back. In the form of Shawn describing the simulation. As he did, the forest began to come alive. Trees swayed back and forth in the wind. Birds began chirping. And Phase saw something small and fast flick just past the corner of her eye. She didn't know what it was...a bird or something...

Almost on cue, she felt a painful electrical shock hit her right in the small of her back. Out of surprise more than anything, she literally jumped a good two feet in the air, whipping around as soon as she landed and grabbing for the throbbing circle on her back.

'Nothing super-painful my a--.'

As she turned around and began to focus, she began to see the small metallic ball that was floating where she used to be standing. It was small, maybe a foot in diameter, and was sluggishly making its way towards her. It must have drained itself or something. But it was quickly recovering.

Phase quickly made a motion to Shawn, asking "Is this supposed to happen?" As the orb began to float ever closer to her, picking up speed as it went.

She quickly answered her own question (Something she did often), and took the appropriate course of action.

Phase turned on one bare foot and ran.

Streak had just enough time to finish explaining the simulation before one of the orbs took the opportunity to sneak up behind Phase and shock her. He figured that it was probably more the surpsie than the actual shock that got her. But her reaction was still funny to look at. It didn't take long for the orbs to get their original speed back up and start zipping around. They went in and out of trees and above the tree line. Streak waited for Pahse to run before he made a break for it.

It didn't take long for her to do that. One shock was all it took for her to get the idea and to run. The orb that had shocked her locked onto Streak's signal and headed directly for him. He went straight Matrix on it and bent backwards as the orb flew right over him. The mutant didn't stay around for it to turn around and hit him in the back. There was something about running around, and being chased that just got Streak all happy. Maybe it was the fact that he'd always enjoyed the chases when he had his powers and this led to the thought that maybe he'd be getting them back a little. A little was better than nothing right now and nothing was what he had.

The silvermancer dove behind a tree just as one of the orbs smashed into the tree directly in front of him. They weren't that smart they were just fast. "Phase you can use your powers if you want." Streak called out to her. Since she'd ran off he didn't know where she was. This was probably not the best idea because he was just going to attract more orbs toward him by shouting. However, he didn't know what Phase's powers were so it would be interesting to see what she would be able to do in a situation like this.

His shouting turnout out to be a really bad idea. When he looked in front of him he was confronted with four orbs. All of them were surrounding him and he was going to be in a lot of trouble if he didn't get her powers reactivated soon. "Let's go." Streak said to the orbs. There really wasn't much he could do except hope to dodge them all. As if in unison they all attacked. He managed to dodge one. The rest seemed smarter and caught him. The sudden shock from all of them at once seemed to help him a little. One hit his back, the second hit his tattoo, and the thrid hit him in the back of the head. It also hurt a lot. He hadn't been in this much pain in quite a while. The good news was that he also felt his tattoo throbbing and leaking.

Leaking was a good thing. It always felt like his tattoo was leaking when he was accessing his powers. Streak knelt down as the orbs moved off and went in their separate directions for a new target to attack. The silvermancer focused and flet the leaking being controlled. Maybe a jolt was just what he needed. So far he'd gotten the silver to cover his arm. It almost dripped off like blood or sweat does but he managed to get it into it's normal state. This was going to be a good session.

Phase had to have been running for a minute before she realized the orb wasn't actually chasing her. She skidded to a halt and looked around. It didn't look like there were any nearby. Any of those...orbs. Or whatever they were. Phase stood there, half doubled-over and gasping for breath, glancing from side to side to look for more orbs.

"Damn, I am definitely not built for this," Phase thought to herself as her breathing began to quiet down.

She heard a faint whizzing noise from above. So faint that she barely noticed it. What she noticed more was the small, circular shadow crossing onto hers.

Phase lept away just in time, with the orb crashing to the ground behind her. She whipped around, loose hair strands throwing themselves into her face. She breathed heavily again, now that her tiny adrenaline rush had faded. That is, until Shawn's voice drifted through the trees.

"Phase, you can use your powers if you want."

'Okay, okay...come on, Rose, you can do this,' she thought to herself as she backed up to a sufficient distance. The orb began to shakily float back upwards, as though disoriented, before it began floating towards her.

She ran straight at it.

And phased.

She knew she had phased, because she suddenly found herself inside a brand new indent in a tree. The orb was totally out of it, and lying on the ground at her feet. Phase slowly turned around, feeling as though the wind had been knocked out of her. She poked the small sphere.

She poked it again. No shock.

She figured it was dead. Well, dead enough.

"Okay," she said to herself. "I think I'm getting the hang of this."

Streak didn't hear any sounds owing from a certain direction because he was busy with his orbs. It was getting difficult to control the rest of his silver that was leaking out by now... but he was managing. He thought he heard something like maybe a person, or an orb, hitting the ground but he couldn't tell. Streak looked around to see something but there was nothing to see. No smoke, no cry of pain, no person getting off the ground. There was no nothing.

By this time the silver had managed to crawl its way to the covering his entire torso and his lower extremities. This is definitely getting easier to control. He thought to himself. There wasn't much that he had to do now to focus on the silver. It was kind of doing it all by itself, just like it used to. The silver always did seem to have a mind of its own and he was never really bothered by that. It always seemed to help him.

The ill mannered feelings he had towards his powers were quickly supplanted with the relief that he was on his way to getting them back. Now it was only his face that needed to be covered. The silvermancer quickly covered his face and he was back to being his good old Silver Streak self. These orbs wouldn't know what hit them.

Streak couldn't help but laugh a little. He was over joyed with the fact that he was finally getting his powers back. The mutant took the opportunity to run and get away from all of the orbs that were surrounding him. A few tied to follow but they lost him, or simply disappeared after just a little bit of pursuit. Streak ran past a downed orb and wondered if that was where Phase had been. Speaking of which... he stopped for a second next to the downed orb, where'd she go? Streak looked behind a couple of trees but didn't see her. Maybe she was just really good at hiding. One thing was for certain. His silver didn't really hid him very well in this senario.

Phase had finally manage to struggle her way out of the dent in the tree before she actually heard the fighting. It was faint, but not really distant. More like...small-scale. She began to wonder how Shawn was doing. The thought faintly crossed her mind as she began to make her way to the clearing.

And then she noticed him. As if he had been summoned, there he was. And what was more disturbing, he hadn't walked in, or even ran in. He'd just...appeared. Some of it probably had to do with the fact that she hadn't been paying attention, but that thought was quickly drowned out of her head. Instead, two thoughts took an extreme priority for her. They weren't actually thoughts, but observations.

Observation #1: He was looking at the downed orb with extreme curiosity, and looking for her rather intently.

Observation #2: He was covered in metal.

Phase's conclusion: An orb had just eaten Shawn while she wasn't paying attention.

Phase quickly judged the distance between the two mutants, then started running straight at him. He was quite a ways away, so she had just enough time to hear a couple of the thoughts racing through her head. Namely; could one of those orbs eat someone? She didn't have much time to dwell on the subject, though, because she was already well within range and was sprinting at a high speed.

She waited until she was just under a yard away, then phased.

Again, she knew she had phased, mostly because she'd suddenly found herself out of the clearing and running towards a tree. With a silent scream, she crashed into the tree shoulder-first, rubbed the painful area, then looked back to assess what she'd done. Only to find that the only thing she could see was a somewhat skinny tree with a sizeable amount of trunk missing, that was falling backward into the clearing.

"Oh...damn...whoops," she silently mouthed as the tree began to fall.

Streak kept looking around for Phase. It didn't appear to take very long because she started running towards him. He wasn't sure why she was running at him but maybe she saw something that he didn't. He looked around for an orb to be pretty close to him but didn't see one. It was then that he realized that he didn't explain what his powers were, even though he wasn't expecting to have access to them. Maybe she was thinking he thought he looked nothing like them.

First of all he was human and the orbs were... well... orbs. He was about to move when she seemed to disappeared. Now he was officially confused. He didn't bother to ask her what her powers were before they started but he still didn't really think it would matter. Then he saw her again past the clearing and running into a tree. Streak walked over to her smiling. "You ok? You ran into that tree pretty hard. He was trying not to laugh as the tree fell over.

There wasn't much time for them to hang around though because the orbs started heading towards them. Streak concentrated really hard and his silver started to leak off his hands only this time it formed into a knife. It felt good to have his powers back and he was glad that he was getting control of it again so much faster. Streak took the formed knife and threw it at the incoming orb. The knife sailed straight into the orb and stuck it into the closest tree. "We should probably get moving. Man it's great to have my powers back."

"You okay? You ran into that tree pretty hard.

Phase grimaced, rubbing her throbbing shoulder. Slowly, however, she began to nod. That one did hurt a bit. She made another observation at the same time, which was that that comment could only have been Shawn. Not that she knew him that well, but still.

Then it hit her. How in the hell was he still standing? She'd just turned into pure kinetic energy, blown right through him, and he was still standing? What in the name of God was he?

A Mutant. Duh.

"We should probably get moving. Man it's great to have my powers back."

Phase nodded toward the first comment, nervously glancing around at the same time. He was right. They couldn't stay here in the open like this. Already, Phase could see tiny flicks of light moving through the distant forest. They were being searched for...

Then the second comment hit.

Phase quickly pulled out her notepad and scribbled down her response. "Wait...you can lose your powers?" the paper asked. She then saw another flicker of light, much closer this time. Furiously, she pocketed her notepad and signed out the words, "Talk and run," to Shawn, before starting to run deeper into the forest.

Phase darted away from him and Streak had to hurry to catch up to her. Once he had he started to explain. "Ya you can. It's kind of rarre though because it usually happens to people that've gone thorugh hard trials or some traumatic event." He really didn't want to get into the whole details of how he lost his powers but he was mainly enjoying his powers at the moment. Streak settled into his pace as he explained all this to Phase.

He looked around as they ran, and kept a lookout for any incoming orbs. They had already taken two orbs out and that left about two or three more that still needed to be taken care of. "It usually takes a while to get your powers back if you lose them for one reason or another. And believe me you don't know what you have until you don't have it for a while."

Maybe she would be able to understand what he was talking about. Maybe she would have a similar experience, probably not with her powers but perhaps it was with something else. She didn't need to share, it wasn't necessary and Streak wasn't really asking. Not to mention it'd probably be pretty hard to covey anything while they were running because he figured she'd have trouble writing while they ran. Unless she was actually able to talk and he didn't know it yet.

Just as he finished his little story a few orbs seemed to have found them and darted right over their heads. "Look out." Streak exclaimed ducking his head and putting his hand on Phase's head to try and get her to duck a little. If he had more control over his powers then it would be game over for these orbs. Unfortunately that isn't the case, so it'll take a little longer than it would have in the past.