The Danger Room. Possible the best invention since sliced bread. The order went... sliced bread, then the Danger Room, then so on and so on. The only draw back was that he needed someone older to be in the place at the same time. Ted stood outside the Danger Room door waiting for someone to come and open the doors so that he could have some fun. From what he'd learned about his mutation, it was all fun and games. He couldn't fight with it and he didn't reallly have any plans to either. His plan was to get better control on his a certain form that he'd had for a while and never really been able to play with it too much. Now that he was living at the mansion he figured now would be the best time for him to play around.

Badgers were an odd species. They sometimes lived in large groups but they could also live with little families. He'd done some research on the animal in his opinion they sounded like a good kind of playful creature. Normally he practiced these things in his room, or somewhere where he was alone. Now that there was the Danger Room he could try out an idea that had popped into his head just the other day. Would he be able to pass for a real badger or would other badgers single him out and avoid him because he was a moving stuffed animal and not a real animal?

Raina's boot heels clicked as she walked down the long winding hallway that lead to the danger room. She was briefing herself on Teds file. She'd got an e-mail asking for a chaperone for a session and was embarrassed by the fact she didnt know the student.

She was surprised to see he was only 14. The mutants coming here seemed to be getting younger and younger. To think she was 21 when she first came here, she was 24 now!

More than being surprised about his age Raina was surprised about his ability. \She couldn't fathom a power like his. What had that been like for his poor parents? It was bad enough when your child could set things on fire or turn into a cat... but turning into a stuffed animal? She sure hoped Ted didnt have any younger siblings. What she wouldn't do to get her hands on that family tree...

She rounded the corner and saw the young boy waiting hopefully. "Hi Ted." she said with a beaming smile. "I'm Raina!"

“Hi Raina.” Ted said turning around to meet the woman. He was glad that she’d shown up. It would be a fun thing for him to show off for someone. Ted hadn’t even seen the woman before so he was surprised to see Raina with her red hair. Even though Teddy was usually kind of shy, he was more eager to play around with something fun than he was interested in. “I’m ready to start. I can’t wait.” said the eager 14 year old. Ted already had an idea of what would help him, and be the most fun, for when they started playing in the Danger Room.

It looked to be a promising day. Once Raina was there the Danger Room doors decided that they would open. Ted secretly hoped that he wouldn’t have to wait until he was as old as she was before he could get in there by himself. He’d never been in here before so when the doors opened he stared at the inside in awe. The young teen couldn’t imagine how something so awesome and so huge could be hidden inside a school like this. A little “Wow” escaped his lips and he took a few steps forward into the Danger Room. Now that he’d seen it he wasn’t sure how he would be able to get anything he wanted done. “How does this thing work? It won't help me much if it just hurts me.” Ted said actually sounding a little disappointed that he might be confined to practicing in his room alone.

Ted had a vision of something completely different. And now that he actually saw the place he wondered how it could possibly help him. Teddy looked at Raina expectantly waiting for an answer.

Raina set her face in the scanner and the alarm beeped for a second. Next the giant doors opened wide and they walked into an empty room. "Im glad you're excited." she said with a smile putting her clipboard down. "It works as far as your imagination does Ted. We can set the room to be anything.... here... watch."

Raina headed up the stairs to the control room and slipped on a headset. Her voice came over the PA system in the room. "Ok Ted, imagine yourself in a warm jungle." she turned some dials on the control board and the heat in the room went up. Next holograms of luscious green forest appeared and animal sounds on the background.

A howler monkey dangled from the trees while Raina put a CDrom into the control board. The monkey hung upside down and blinked at Ted. "Neat eh?" she grinned. "What would you like to try?" she asked.

Raina seemed to know exactly what she was doing. Ted listened to her talking. He still wasn't super impressed with what he'd seen so far, but apparently Raina knew something about this room that he didn't. Ted started to imagine a warm jungle. He closed his eyes and pictured the trees around him and birds flying about finding food. And monkey's swinging from trees. The picture in his head seemed so vivid that he opened his eyes and was very surprised to see that he was really standing in the jungle. "Wow. This is so cool." Teddy said as a monkey stared at him from above the trees.

He'd spent a lot of time doing some research on what badgers liked... and a jungle wasn't it. "How about a prairie with a bunch of badgers." Ted said tearing his eyes away from the monkey above him. His idea was for trying to hide among a lot of other badgers. Mainly it would be fun for him to see how well he could blend in with other animals of the same species. It was true that they weren't real badgers that he'd be mingling with but they would be acting a lot like real ones. So maybe this would work.

"Sure." said Raina "none of it will be real... I mean if you want a real experience I guess I could always sneak you into a zoo or something... but it'll be as real as I can get it."

She popped out the CD and put in another. The lights dimmed and again Ted would be left standing in an empty dark room. She popped open a browser on the computer so she could input a badger image. "This might be a bit choppy... I dont think anyone has had badgers in the danger room before... I was surprised enough to find a monkey!" she laughed.

After a few more minutes blowing sand began to appear. "Now the sand blowing around here is real Sand Ted. Sometimes we can use physical elements like sand, dirt, water, some plants... " she pushed a few more dials and the terrain in the room started to shift.

The danger room had seemed like magic to her once upon a time. But she'd invested a lot of time in it recently to understand how it worked. So she could use it for her own abilities and training. She could seal the whole room off and train underwater if she wanted. In fact... she planned to do that again pretty soon.

Finally the badger data downloaded and began to upload into the system. At first the little critters running around Ted looked like blurry cats but as the program finished it's cycle they were full blown badgers. "alright!" she said excited. "Lets see your stuff!"

ooc: feel free to gmod the critters and assume any requests you make to Raina for the room automatically happen.

Ted waited for a little bit as Raina played with the computer upstairs. “Let’s hold off the sneaking into zoo’s thing for a little while.” Ted said back to her. He had no intention of breaking the law but more importantly he didn’t want to end up getting mauled in the process of learning. As the lights dimmed he stood motionless, unsure of what to expect to come out of the darkness that filled the room. Teddy shrugged. He didn’t mind if it was choppy. Choppy was better than nothing.

As Raina continued to talk the Danger Room started to fill up with a mix of real things and fake things. The programming was so good it was hard for him to tell which was real and which something the computer was projecting for him. Ted felt some sand hit him in the face before moving on to its place in the Danger Room. Ted watched as the badgers started to appear out of the computers system and become projected onto the Danger Room floor that he was standing on. It was awesome to see all this and the young mutant was even more surprised when a computerized badger came up to him and started sniffing his feet.

“This is sooo cool.” He remarked as everything came into place. Once everything stopped changing Ted took that as a sign that it was his turn to change. “You can come down and join in if you want.” Ted said and started the slow process of changing. The process was slow since he didn’t use this one a lot. At first Teddy started to shrink down until he was the size of the badgers. Once his arms and legs were the correct size he looked like a really weird kid. His hair changed to white with streaks of black, and for a second he might have looked a little bit like a skunk instead of a badger. His entire body started to cover up with fur, with different parts of it being black and different parts being grey or white. His hands and feet turned into little paws and a tiny little tail poked out of his back area. He had to admit…it was a little embarrassing to do this in front of someone, but he’d probably have to get used to that. Ted’s face then elongated and his eyes sucked in a bit, turning to little beady eyes, and his ears shrank and ran up to the top of his head. After a few minutes he was a fully fledged stuffed badger; able to move, groove and explore this area.

Everything looked so much bigger now that he was smaller. Every little grain of sand looked just a bit bigger. Granted he wasn’t super small but things that look small to him before now seemed to be just that much bigger. The fake badger that was around his feet before he changed was now directly in front of him, almost nose to nose actually. Ted started to shift his weight from foot to foot as he started to walk away from the first fake badger to mingle with other fake badgers. More seemed to be coming out of the wood work, well actually it’s probably better to say ground work since they were coming out of holes in the ground. The teddy was curious as to what was going on so he decided to check out one of the holes that a badger had recently come out of. Deciding it was too dark for him to see he turned around and came back out. Ted then wondered if Raina was going to be joining in on the fun he was having or if she would remain up in the computer room.

Raina watched Teddy change and wondered what she looked like to others who saw her change. She always thought it was gross, her legs seemed to melt together and become slimy and scaley. And of course there was the smell and the dark colour they turned.

By Ted just seemed to shrink and it wasn't until she was down in the room with a control in her pocked that she realized up close he really was a badger. Well.. a plushie one. Which was pretty weird she had to admit. But also pretty freaking adorable.

"Ted, forgive the girl in me. But you're damn cute." she squatted down to his level to peer into his beady eyes. "It must feel so weird. I bet some of your other senses are changed too like sight and sound." she stood back up and stepped a few paces away.

"I'll observe for a while. I don't usually participate in first sessions. I dont want to put you in any danger in the danger room while you're trying things out." she laughed

Ted blushed. On the inside at least. Cause, of course, stuffed animals can’t blush. Then again it wasn’t often that they moved around too. Thanks. that’s something he wanted to say, but since he couldn’t talk he was forced to give her, as best he could, a smile. She was nice. He had to admit. Raina was more interested in him learning than having fun. However, he could spend a lot of time just playing. Ted then decided to walk around a bit and mingle with the other interesting badgers. Some were running and playing while others were burrowing for food and doing other badger stuff.

The young badger-boy turned around and joined the others. His walk felt a little uneven and forced, however, the farther he walked the more relaxed and natural it began to feel and look. There he was, minding his own business, and suddenly he was knocked over by a Danger Room badger. He looked around and rolled over, getting the animal off of him. The two started to roll around and he started wresting with it. It was fun, that’s all it was. Teddy’s moves started to look more and more badger like the more he rolled around with it. Oddly enough, he wasn’t getting scratched up or bitten. Just mainly pushed around. Ted considered this a good sign. It was telling him that he was able to blend in with others of the same species enough for them to play with him. Unfortunately this didn’t tell him exactly how a real one would react to him.