(OOC: OK let me know if I go to far. I also see you're trying to take my job )

"Yup. Time for the simulations." Streak said to Shin. It didn't take long before both of them were in the Danger Room. Once they were there Shawn immediately headed towards his outlook spot from the control room. "Wait here and I'll start the simulation and let you know a little about it before we get going." Streak said as he continued to walk away. Once he was there the xmen recruiter said, through the god mic, "By the way... How's your stealth and non mutational abilities."

The silver man started to flip various switches and toggle knobs. He needed to think of a few various things that could give Shin a tricky situation. Finally an idea came to him and he started adjusting the knobs and buttons that he'd been pushing only seconds ago. He remembered what the guy had said about his powers and Streak figured that he'd give him a real challenge. Once he knew what Shin's answers were he would adjust the simulation accordingly.

Shin looked up at the God room, blinking at Streak’s question. “Stealth? No idea. I’m really active though, for non-mutational. Run a mile every day.” His brow crinkled with worry at those two questions. “Hey, we aren’t doing a stealth mission are we? I’m not sure if I’d be very good at those…”

Shin’s right foot tapped nervously, waiting for the simulation to start. Hmm… Maybe if he told him he sucked at stealth, Shawn would only choose something stealthy to challenge him. He’d better not Solid Snake me out of spite. Shin frowned, crossing his arms. He always played Metal Gear Solid on Easy so he could strangle guards…

Shawn talked back to Shin through the mic and said, "I was just wondering. If you think you're going to do really poorly then I'll set something else up." He already had something in mind for what Shin was going to do. Streak hit the simulation button and the entire Danger Room turned into a forest. It wasn't so thick that the simulated sun wouldn't shine through but it was thick enough that one could hide behind the trees and pop out for a surprise attack. Before he started the simulation he explained what was going to happen in this test.

"Ok. What we've got here is more like a reflexive and close quarters drill. There are some robots hidden in the forest that will pop out and attack you. There's also some orbs that are flying around looking for you. They all adapt to your attacks so you'll have to get rid of them quickly." Streak informed him. "Oh, one more thing once you destroy them all you win and the simulation will disappear. And put these on." He threw down a pair of bracelets. "These'll keep score on how many hits you take." "Any questions?" Streak asked.

The forest loomed up around him like a jungle… no, not a jungle. It was too ‘Western United States’ to be a jungle. Maybe the term ‘rain forest’ was more appropriate here. It reminded him of the scenery in a movie one of his friends had forced him to see recently… something about vampires in Forks, Washington. He’d done an internet search on Forks, Washington. Apart from the one tree in the center of the town, and that lone book store, it didn’t have much to offer towards entertainment for sparkly creatures of the night. A passing thought struck him. Maybe the robots would be shaped like werewolves…

Ah well, at least the forest part of that town had been amazing. And the lake. Shin glanced off towards the distance, hoping he’d catch sight of some crescent-shaped lake. Nope. No lake bending like the moon. Sad. Shaking off his thoughts, he turned to the matter at hand.

~*~

Shin slipped the bracelets on, twisting them down on his wrists as he looked up at Shawn, eyebrow quirked. “How many robots are we talking about here?” And they were going to adapt to his every move? That’d be fun. In fact, he was looking forward to this entire test. Cracking his knuckles, and stretching his arms out in front of his chest, he waited for his answer and prepared.

Once he had his answer, he nodded to Shawn. “Okay, I’m ready.”

"Just a few." Streak answered Shin. It wasn't so many that he was going to fail. Perhaps four or five. But it was enough for him to show what he's got and how well he could handle multiple attacks. As soon as Shin said he was ready, he started the simulation. Not much seemed to change when he started because the simulation was waiting for Shin to start moving through the forest. Once he'd pressed the start button Shawn sat down in the chair and started watching the progress.

There wasn't much Shawn could do for Shin from this point on. He was basically all on his own.

Birds erupted from the branches overhead, chirping wildly as Shin stepped into the forest. He looked around, keeping his arms up at the ready. Each step was a possibility for a random encounter, and a snapped branch served just as much a test of his reaction time as any old robot. He called up four shards to form a 6 by 6 triangular shield, thrusting it out in front of him to fly through some bushes. A few leaves fell, then a moment of hushed rustling.

A squirrel skittered up a tree. An embarrassed sweat drop pooled on Shin’s brow.

“Er… to err is human, I guess.” He pressed onwards. After a few minutes of nothing happening, he started to grow suspicious. “Hey Shawn!” Shin called back, turning back towards where he’d come from. “You sure there are robots in this—” Ironically, that’s when the first robot chose to attack.

Now, I’m not sure about the definition of irony used in this instance here. The word irony has been batted around and battered around by know-nothing college 20-somethings like the ball in a game of Pong for ages. Some think it means something happening out of nowhere, something unexpected. Others look to Webster for their deeper understanding. This instance of the usage of irony seems to denote from the incongruous nature of Shin seeing no robots, expecting no robots, and suddenly being blindsided by said robots. Ah well, definitions don’t matter much when a great big metal man is bashing you upside the head. Shin flashed back to the battle, spitting the word ‘IRONY’ in the tin man’s face, followed by a smattering of triangle shrapnel.

The robot reeled, shifting its massive hand up to block, then rushing forwards at ramming speed. Shin yelped, leaping out of its way only to watch it hurtle onwards, through a tree trunk. The trunk whined with a crunch, and Shin’s eyes lurched skywards.

“Uh…” The tree started swaying. Too bad the robot didn’t seem to be paying it much heed. He was far more interested in ramming Shin again. The Asian narrowly avoided the tackle at the last moment, dropping into a sideways roll. Another tree groaned a groan for the ages. Shin was suddenly glad he wasn’t made of wood.

Focusing on the matter at hand, he called up all the triangles he could muster, forcing them into two rectangular barriers. He placed both between him and Mr. Roboto, narrowing his eyes. He took a cautious step to the left, keeping his upper torso lined up flat towards the robot as his legs moved sideways. It clacked its claws together, then ‘clapped’. … Or maybe that was a crushing motion demonstrating just what he wanted to do to Shin?

“Come on!” Shin taunted, waving his fingers towards his body on his outstretched upward-facing palm. The robot broke into a reckless charge. Now!!! Shin burst to the side, flying through the air leftwards as his first barrier burst apart, shards flying towards both tree trunks in a brutal storm. The robot impacted on the second barrier, momentarily holding it in place. Another groan as Shin’s shards tore through the trunks. He snapped his hand, and a final shard whipped by the first trunk, wheeling around with 11 others to form a makeshift cube that smacked into the back of the tree, forcing it forwards. It came down hard towards the robot, crushing across its back. The second tree fell on top of the first as Shin landed with a thud, bouncing on ivy. He ventured a squinting look back at the robot, holding his side.

“X marks the spot…” He grimaced, getting to his feet. The two trees had overlapped, reminding him of the school’s eponymous symbol of unity. If all the robots were like this one, he bit back the thought… He’d have his work cut out for him.

Shaking his head, he moved onwards towards round two.

Shawn looked on. The demonstration was very complex. It didn't take him long to see that this was going to be a very good tryout. Sometimes you get people that have a quick ending. He never thought those were as exciting as some of the other fights he'd watched. This guy knew his stuff and he was using it to his best advantage. Even Streak, who'd seen plenty of battles in the Danger Room, wasn't expecting him to cut down the trees right away. He merely thought that he would use the shards against the robot. Since the robots metal was probably no where near as hard as Shin's traingles he could have easily sliced and diced the robot into thin ribbons. But it didn't matter because he'd dispatched of the first robot without much trouble. Things were looking up for this guy.

With one more robot to deal with in this round Shawn activated the flying orbs that had been lying in wait. During Shin's first match they were paused above the tree tops out of sight. the only way Shin would know if they were there would be if Streak activated them or if Shin was thrown through the air. However, since Streak had activated them already, the prospective X-Men trainee would find out about them farily soon. The orbs always enjoyed hide and seek and they also enjoyed, if perhaps not more so, a good game of tag. Which without telling someone straight out, that was in fact what he was doing. Playing hide and seek with a little mutant twist in it. Shawn himself loved playing it with the orbs ever since he had them on his trials. It seemed like things would turn out well for Shin.

Streak then turned his attention onto the robots, orbs, and Shin. Things were about to get a lot more interesting as the orbs flew through the forest canopy. They were shooting anything that moved. However, since the birds and animals were all holograms, once they were shot they would simply disappear from the simulation. It didn't seem like they were going for the subtle approach in finding Shin. Then again, taking down two trees only seemed to shout 'HEY OVER HERE.' to the mutant seeking orbs. Especially in a giant X shape. Nope not very subtle indeed. But one mans subtle is another mans red flare of attention. Despite the fact that the orbs knew the general area where Shin was, they were taking there time in getting to the spot where the giant X was in the forest. Streak started to feel a little anxious for Shin. Things never seemed to turn out well for anyone when there were orbs involved. And he knew from personal experience. The silver eyed mutant sat closer to the window to see how Shin was going to handle this.

Handle it? Shin could hardly handle staggering through the bramble to the next clearing. One hand clutching his side, he made his way away from the big wooden X on the ground. Sure, some people might have thought it was this ‘great, overpowering strategy to flush out bad robots!’ Shin just thought it was dumb luck… and what was it with the danger room and hurting himself? They seemed to go together like peanut butter and jelly.

“Just as tasty too…” He muttered, leaning his back against a tree and slumping down to breathe. “Damn, I could use some milk…” A streak of laser caught his attention out of the corner of one eye. Shin snapped back to his feet, drawing up a few shards defensively. Had the next robot shown up? It was near… Turning to peer through the foliage, he neglected the air. With his back turned, the first robot spun happily to turn its sights on easy pickings.

PEWPEWPEW

The first three shots came in low to the ground, causing Shin to hop! “The air!” Shin’s attention drew skywards. This thing wanted to play with him and make him dance. “I’ll just have to show this guy my three-step…” The Asian swung himself around to the other side of the tree, slouching down in wait. A second orb bobbed down in front of him, preparing to fire. “…”

He leaped out of the way at the last minute, rolling across the forest floor. Shots from the first robot chased after him as he dove for cover. The tree he’d just been next to tumbled over, knocking other trees down like dominoes.

“Dammit…” They patrolled the area behind him. He snuck a peek just to be sure, and a shot whizzed by his nose. “Too close…” He withdrew his head. “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. How can I…?”

They were still behind him, patrolling. He knew it. He couldn’t see it, but he could hear the faint whir. Shin gritted his teeth. Searching behind was not an option, and to run out and fire at them was certain suicide. If even one hair poked out from around that tree… and he couldn’t get a straight line of vision to hit them with, either… a sudden thought struck him. Focusing on summoning a single shard floating above his palm, Shin squeezed his eyes shut. Reflective… drifted through his mind with the flash of a mirror. He opened his eyes.

“Pink.” He tried again. And again. Two tries down, third time’s the charm. A reflective shard welled up, hovering in front of him to reflect his grinning face. “Perfect!” Shifting it to catch the enemies like a rear-view mirror, he lined up his next shots.

“There!” Seven three inch triangles ripped through the air, dicing those robots into thin slices of sheet metal. Shin pumped his fist in triumph, stepping out from behind the tree… and into the path of a third robot’s beam.

“Urgh!” A hastily-drawn up shield had lessened the blow, but it had still hit his side. No amount of shard armor could block all of that force. Throwing his arm forward, he countered with a rainbow storm. The death sphere fell to the dirt with three thuds, in pieces. Shin dropped to one knee.

"Still, the battle goes on..." He dragged himself back to his feet, turning his head for the next robot. "C'mon, I'm right here little deathbot. You know you want me."

Something whirred off into the trees. That whirring almost sounded like giggling… “Or are you going to hide…” Just great. He’d have to find the last one. Shifting himself, he bent down to grab a stray branch for a cane. Using it, he pushed himself onwards, mind at the ready. Shards spun around him like satellites, prepared for any incoming bolt.

Streak watched Shin moving on in his session. Things were going faily well, however he did seem to be hurt. That happened a lot to people in the manison who wanted to train there. It seemed like a natural course of events. Start a simulation, do pretty well, get hurt, then finish the simulation, see DocProf, ect... Although Shin did seem to be handling things fairly well even with his injury. He continued to watch Shin through the camera's. It seemed much easier than trying to see him through the tops of the trees. Although, with the orbs and robots breaking everything in site soon it wouldn't be hard to see him from above.

He was very impressed with what he'd seen so far and the inginuity that this guy was coming up with didn't seem to slow him down at all. Shin did seem to be attracting more hits than he'd seen on many other people. Thankfully it didn't stop him from doing what he was supposed to do. Destroy the orbs. Streak could hardly wait to see what he was going to pull out of his sleeve for this last orb.

“Here, little robot little robot little robot little…” Crunch. His fist clenched into a death grip, staving off a stream of swears. The trees around Shin swayed as a cool breeze swept through, putting a chill on his momentary boiling point. Branches rustled as he pushed his way through the forest, towards a clearing. As he plodded along, Shin’s eyes shifted left, then right, always searching for that lone floating deathbot, that single sphere lurking in fear… or perhaps toying with him out of some sick Danger Room programming quirk. Did the Danger Room have feelings? Perhaps calling it nothing but nuts and bolts that one time had damaged them…?

“Ah well, if your circuits have been fizzled by insults once, they’ve been harangued by them thousands of times…”

But where was it…? Ghostly round shapes seemed to slip from trunk to trunk as he went on. He could almost hear that wheezing whir of laughter. Or was that the tree creaking? Yup. Shin lurched to the left, dodging a falling tree. It hit the forest floor with a deafening thud. Scurrying to get back to his feet, Shin ran from a second one.

“Coward!” He dodged a third, running, running, oh god was he running! He broke into a blur, arms spinning in circles as if fighting against momentum. In his mind, legs were a blur. He mentally compared himself to the roadrunner, or perhaps Speedy Gonzales. Meep meep. He arced over a fallen tree trunk in a leap. As he landed on all fours, he raised his head searching for the next one. A glint of silver caught his eye. “Crafty little devil, cutting down trees with its laser beam… TAKE SOME OF THESE!!!”

A wave of crystalline equilaterals crashed down on the spot he’d seen the glint, raging and cresting, turning wood into splinters… but it was gone just as fast as seen.

“Obviously, targeting it isn’t going to work here…” Sneaky bugger’d obviously learned from his friends. You stay still too long, you become kitsch art; A metalworker’s artistic dream. Obviously, he’d have to change his attack plan here…

“Obviously…” Obviously. Shards shifting to heed the call, his radical rainbow wave circled around him, clearing the world around him in a cacophony of crashing destruction… which was laymen’s terms for saying it was messy as Hell. Trees groaned as their trunks turned to splinters, the underbrush exploded in a mist of green vegetation. As Shin’s body broke the tree line, feet clopping down in the clearing like a pitcher taking the mound, the forest behind him toppled like dominoes.

“Did I get him?” Shin grinned, looking back. Subtlety had never been his strong suit.

Shawn watched very intently as Shin continued to battle the one remaining robot. This was definitely one of the more entertaining and suspenseful ones that he’d seen since he had started to give people trails for the X-Men. The trees were going down left and right. The robot seemed intent on killing Shin. He wasn’t sure why this was going on. Shawn looked over the settings that he’d put in place when he’d set up the simulation. For the life of him he didn’t remember setting the thing on kill. Either way Shin was still doing very well with this guy. The lack of subtlety was a little disconcerting and Streak knew right away that Shin was probably not the best person for any ‘intelligence gathering’ missions. But they could always work on that later. There was still plenty of more things that were going to be going on in this trial.

He didn’t mess with any of the settings that were currently in play because he figured that Shin wouldn’t appreciate the sudden ease of the simulation. After he checked the settings he returned to watching his progress. The trees continued to fall throughout the area and there was becoming less and less of a place to hide. Not something Streak would have done but then again he wasn’t the one doing the tryout, he was just administering it. Well one thing was certain…Shin sure can run fast. Although if other people had trees falling towards them he doubted they would be slow running away. Shin was still pretty creative in the way he was using his powers, and that was always good to see. Taking out the entire forest was one tactic for him to take out the robot. After all the trees had fallen and Shin shouted out Streak pressed the god mic button and said, “Yup. You got’im.” The forest disappeared and the room turned back into its smooth metallic appearance. “Good job man.”

Streak started pushing plenty of buttons again. Buttons always were fun to push, especially if they made noise when you pushed them. He froze the simulation before it started. This was one that he really liked to go watch from the bottom and not from the top. Hand to hand combat was one of Streak’s favorite things to do. “Ok, now hand to hand combat.” He said once he was on the floor near Shin. The subtlety part was over and not done very well but now he could really see how Shin would stand up to an attack on the mansion from either humans or mutants. Either seemed possible considering the history of the mansion and either way he needed to be able to fight. The robot that Shin was going to fight showed up. “You get to fight him. He’s strong and smart. Just like the orbs and the other robots, they learn from your moves. Try not to cut him to pieces because he’s supposed to simulate a fight with an actual person.” Streak smiled to Shin. “You’re doin’ pretty good. But I’ll start ‘im up whenever you’re ready.”

“Heh, thank goodness. I was worried there for a second. I thought it might rise from the ashes like a phoenix with an attitude problem.” Although he probably could have eased back on the destruction… If there’d been people there, someone could have gotten hurt. Plus, there was the whole connotation about ruining an eco system in order to stop a single robot, and the question ringing in his mind about how he’d be able to do something like that in a real-world setting… but he just shrugged those thoughts off for the moment.

Shawn froze the simulation, and came down to talk to him. It seemed the next trial would be in hand-to-hand combat with a robot. Yup. Shin’s brutality had obviously not gone unnoticed. Oops? He’d be sure to treat this new robot like a human opponent.

“Treat him like a real opponent. Right. I’ve got it. I’m ready to start, Shawn.”

Shin waited for Shawn to start the simulation. The robot made the first move. Lunging forwards, it stretched out its arms to grab at Shin. Shin caught the arms, holding him back and locking it into a grapple. Shin’s forward leg came up, swinging in towards the armpit, and his other leg flicked over to come at the robot from the other side. Both legs wrapped around the robot, one at his side, the other near his neck. Letting his weight carry the robot down, he shifted into a falling armbar, wrapping his legs around the robot and restraining one arm. He pulled back, putting pressure on the robot’s joint. It wasn’t fatal pressure, but just enough to restrain the average human and keep them down. The robot struggled against the lock, but that’s the thing of beauty about jujitsu moves; humans all have the same joint weaknesses. With technical precision and prowess, any grapple can restrain a strong fighter.

Rolling his head to look at Shawn, Shin strained his eyes. “I got him pinned. Do you want to do the countdown for this, or…?”


((OOC: www.youtube.com/watch?v=76bEAM5MjrQ How to do a flying armbar.))

Streak started the simulation and watched as the robot did what it did best. Attack. Any normal person would do the same thing. Shin was moving fast and the speed in which he dealt with the robot was surprising to everyone. Streak smiled at the fighting style. Shawn always liked jujitsu. However, there was always one big weakness in the martial art. And that was size of opponent mattered when you were fighting. If someone was bigger than you Things didn’t always workout the way you’d want them.

Another thing that made this fight more interesting was the fact that the robots adapted to their opponent. Shin’s armbar worked. Unfortunately the robot figured out how to get out of it. Once out of Shin’s armbar, he was still holding on to the robot, it picked him up and slammed him down against the ground a few times. Streak cringed at it. Been there, done that. Not pleasant. Streak thought as he watched the fight progress from a quick end to a much more interesting battle. Shin got the point and the robot would need to avoid moves like that if it wanted him to lose. Shawn, personally he wanted Shin to win because so far he seemed like a good asset to the team.

The thing about armbars that makes them so effective against humans makes them highly ineffective against machines, it seemed; pain. In a human, the pressure put on a limb would expose weakness, causing the opponent to hesitate their attempts at shaking out of the arm-lock. Unfortunately for Shin, this robot was suicidal! As its arm rose in a blur and its body shifted to slam him into the ground a few times, Shin cursed his lack of foresight. On the final hammer downwards, Shin slipped and slid away across the floor. The robot’s fist impacted on the ground heavily, leaving a dent. It whirred and beeped noisily as it rose to look for its target once more.

“Ugh…” Shin brushed his hand across his lip with a grimace, pushing off the floor with one arm. That robot sure was ornery. “A mean bolt bucket like you wouldn’t understand the finer points of pain…” His voice dropped. They adapted to every strategy their opponents came up with; jujitsu wouldn’t work here. Boxing was out also. What good would tiring an opponent out be when your fists couldn’t leave a dent? That left… terrific.

The two players circled around each other like German pilots in a dogfight. Every so often, one would squeeze off a few rounds of fists that would rattle hopelessly at the other plane’s wake. The other would fly around, leaving a trail of smoke and waggling a wing in taunt. Like any good aerial dogfight, it got down to a matter of speed and turning power… Shin had the advantage there. Dashing in, he delivered a ringing hit to the robot’s side—it sent a reverberation up Shin’s arm to his teeth.

“T-t-that r-really d-doesn’t help m-much…” The robot countered with a punch of its own. A wave of air rustled Shin’s hair as the arm swung up over his dodge. He hung on the floor a fraction of a second, ducked low and thinking. His punches so far hadn’t worked well, and he couldn’t lock it down with grappling moves at all… maybe… rushing forwards, he shoved out at the spinning machine. It took a step back, rotating its torso around to face him again.

“Let’s try this one more time…” The robot came at him, and he ducked its punch, pushing back at its chest in a two-handed outwards shove that broke the robot’s stride. It staggered backwards a few paces, shaking its metal head with a buzz. It rushed in for another go—Shin slipped in low with a sweeping kick, shifting out of the robot’s way as it lurched forwards and caught itself. It turned to face him. If mechanical red sensors could narrow into slits of fury, this robot’s did. On its third attempt, it pulled the punch back in a feint, bringing its left leg out in a brutal kick to Shin’s stomach. Shin braced himself a bit with a shield of shards, but the kick still winded him.

“Dang it…” He held his gut, sitting on the floor cross-legged and in pain. If this thing kept up the pace, he’d have more than just aches and pains, but he couldn’t kill it, and his power was all he had to dent it with… how does one beat something with sharp edges without shredding it to bits!? A thought struck him: that would probably be a useful thing to know how to do… all those times; problems were solved with sharpness when a little finesse would have gone a long way. Grudgingly getting to his feet, Shin made one final bid for success. He barreled straight at the robot, dropping into a shoulder tackle at the last moment and impacting against its side. A line of triangles formed into a pole at ankle level behind its foot, causing it to topple over onto its back. Rows upon rows of triangles spun up to form into four walls of reflective blue barriers, locking into place around the robot to form a makeshift cage.

“Why cut it when I can lock it away?” Shin smirked at Shawn, adding as an afterthought. “And you have no idea how much time that took me to figure out…”

The battle was very interesting. Shin seemed to be running out of ideas. He'd have to explain the point of this exercise when Shin had finished. The robot was quick and Shin had only scored a few points. The tally was picking up and finally Shin had reached it by caging the robot in. The robot then disappeared into nothingness and Shawn knew that he'd won. Clapping slowly Streak walked out of the corner of the Danger Room. "Very good Shin. You finally figured it out. Seems we've found something you need to work on though, but that's ok. Everyone's got things they need to work on." He continued to walk towards Shin. Everything was going according to plan and Shin was looking even more promising as a future X-Men.

"The point of this one was to treat it like a human being or even another mutant. Since we promote equality between humans and mutant kind us as X-men need to know how to win a fight without resorting to fatal measures." Streak started to explain. "Caging the person is a very good way to do it, and of course since this isn't a real person, all your normal tricks didn't work. But you did well coping with the situation and overcoming it to win the fight. And best of all the person would have lived." Streak finished. There was still one more simulation that he needed to run Shin through. "Wait down here and I'll be right back to help ya out with the last simulation."

Shawn ran upstairs and started flipping switches immediately. It was actually going to be a situation similar to the he'd put Arielle through. He'd liked the way she had handled it and it was a good one for seeing how Shin would react to being in charge. Streak then walked back down and the simulation started to appear. "Ok, this is a good one." Shawn smiled. "In this simulation you're the one in charge. If the case being that you are the only one around and there is no higher full X-Men, or trainee that has been part of the team longer, you'd be in charge. This probably wont happen but sometimes it does and I need to know that you wont get whoever's helping you killed." Shawn smiled, "But no pressure. I'm going to be the one you'll be givin orders to. Make decisions fast and we'll see how well you do. Hint. Get as many of the humans behind us as possible. Once they're behind us they'll disappear meaning they're safe.

The train station came into focus and started to fill up with hollographic people. The people started milling about and going about their daily business without a clue as to what was about to happen. Streak knew everything that was going to happen, and once the stalker bots made their way out of the subway area people were going to freak. It's what they did when things happened that were out of their control. "Whenever you're ready the simulation will start."