Saph had spent the better part of a day simply messing with himself. NOT LIKE THAT YOU PERVERT. He had been experimenting with his powers. Ever since he had failed to protect Andrea from... what was that name... It was someone she had known, he was sure of it... She had said the girl's name right before he'd gotten knocked over the side rail... It was just hard to recall after the good hit to the head...

Anyways, he had discovered that his body was inclined to protect itself. If something was swung at him, he could feel it coming, and his body would move so that it only hit his right side... He had tried to learn to resist it at first, but now he decided that it might be better to just let it happen... Furthermore, when ever he felt like he was going to do it, it also felt as if... It wasn't quite all there yet... Like his body wanted to do even more...

He was determined to figure out what it was, so he'd left a note on Juka's door that he wanted to meet him in the danger room, and that he should bring his anvils. Now, he just sat outside the danger room doors, waiting for his colorful friend to arrive.

If this went as well as he hoped, he would find out just what that whole seisure thing had done to his body all in one fell swoop... Things rarely went as planned, so we was looking forward to this actually helping, so that he could go and save Andrea at full power.... Eh... once he found out where she was, or... if she was... still alive...

Juka had spent the day researching, yes researching, at the actual library no less. The research even involved actual books and those books didn't even have pictures in them. OK, so maybe they had a few pictures in them but he wasn't reading them for the pictures. They were not comic books or graphic novels nor even books of fiction. No, they were actual informative non-fiction books on interesting non-fiction subjects. Indeed, the very prospect of him sitting in a stuffy little library sifting through old books would have been ridiculous only a few of weeks ago or maybe even a few days ago.

Juka had started out the day trying to read the chess books that Hunter had given him only a few days prior but, as with the previous couple of mornings, his brain was just not having it because, you see, his brain was filled with images of far away times and far away countries. Vampire man had told him a little of what he had seen and where he had gone over the centuries and Juka had a very unique and personal reason for finding such things interesting because, you see, he had recently discovered that he might just be around a century or two from now or even a millennium. And, given that he might be around in a thousand years (not that he had any concept of what a thousand years really might mean) he had decided that it was time to learn some new things and visit some new and interesting places. Thus he found himself in the library reading about the many countries of Europe.

Juka had only realized just how much time had passed at the library when the pretty little librarian had come over and told him, very politely, that they were closing and it was time to leave. He had accidentally spent the entire day there and my the fascinating things he had learned. A return to his room at The Mansion had found a rather interesting note on his door from his good masochistic friend Saph, telling him to meet in the danger room, complete with anvils. Despite feeling a pang of guilt for having no idea how long he had kept his friend waiting (since he hadn't been home since the early morning) he did as directed, curious to find out what might be in store for him.

Saph Had been waiting a while... Er... a WHILE... Like, a long while... It was okay, though, because he had spent much of it sleeping-er... resting his eyes.

Snore in. "Spaghettios....." Snore out. Snore in. "Cha-cha-cha... Charmin." Snore out. Snore in. "Duck Duck, superfluous lawsuit over patting just a little too hard."... Snore out. Snore in. "Goose." Snore out. He had been napping, and seemingly having pleasant dreams during his nice little wait for his friend. In the back of his mind he told himself that it might have been a better idea to use his phone, and, you know, call the guy, but the whole note thing had worked for Koga, so he figured it might work for him.

He started muttering nonsense about horse shoes and hang grenades when slid sideways down the wall so that he was laying on the ground. He felt a cool draft, and muttered lowly. "Not now, Mosey... couple more hours... Had a long night last.... night."

Juka felt horribly guilty for spending the entire day at the library and not even bothering to come back to the Mansion to see if anyone wanted him. Time, as it turned out, was not something he was very good at keeping track of any longer. Of course, it wasn't like he had known he would have a message waiting for him and Saph could have just called him on his cell phone which he always had with him, so it wasn't really his fault that he was late, was it?

By the time Juka finally did arrive at the pre-appointed Danger Room meeting spot he discovered his little masochist to be sleeping on the floor. Sleeping and, apparently, talking in his sleep. He suppressed an amused giggle at the image before proceeding to send out a tendril for pokage.

"You summoned me and so hear I am," Juka announced proudly. Poking was set to continue until the lazy sod was awake to tell him exactly why he had rushed over to the Danger Room with anvils in tow.

Pleasant dreams were pleasant... They had a way of inspiring brilliance; they told you more things about yourself than most of your waking moments... For example, Saph's pleasant dream included him, his back against a small piece of cover as bullets whizzed past him from all directions, smacking against the wall, and even hitting his exposed right side.

He didn't care, though... He was a super hero, and these guys were just small obstacles! He stepped right out from the cover, and a hail of bullets followed him... did he care? No, he simply pushed his hand out, and they all stopped in their tracks; every single bullet froze in the air, and dropped onto the ground, like in those epic movies... His assailants were stunned, so they stopped firing... big mistake. He jumped the long distance to them, and made them wish they'd never been born. After that, he saw himself run into a building, and exit a few moments later with a dainty green woman wearing only strategically placed scraps of clothing... He was a hero! He had saved the damsel and everything!

And then a dark shadow fell over the scene, it's form impossibly huge... It screamed at the top of its horrid lungs. "TWO SCOOPS!"

"AHH!" He jerked to consciousness to find Juka poking at him... it had just been a dream... of course... he couldn't stop bullets... well, not before they hit him, anyways... He cleared his throat. "ah, eh... Juka... what... what took you so long, huh?" He stood as fast as he could, looking about nervously... he's been sleeping. Had anyone seen him?

Oh well.. "Eh... So, yeah... Um... I called you over cause... I got a feeling... Like there is something going on with my powers... and I wanna get it all sorted out... Cause I didn't have them sorted right, and... well... I failed someone because of it... I called you cause, well, we make a great team, kid. I figured if anyone could help me out it's be you." He smiled a little, but it was clearly dwarfed by his pain at failing to save Andrea.

Yelling upon awakening was not exactly what Juka would have expected from his Masochist Man. Massochist he may be, but Saph had always seemed so brave, calm and collected. He really didn't seem like the type to have nightmares at night, but then again maybe lots of people had secrets that they didn't tell others. Just because Juka himself had an unfortunate tendency to be painfully honest didn't mean that anyone else did. The question was, would it be too rude to ask the details of another man's nightmare?"

"Are you OK?" Yes, that seemed polite enough, Juka decided. No prying questions while still retaining proper concern. A mental nod of ascent at his brilliant thinking.

"Your powers are acting funny?" Now that was something that Juka knew a little something about. His powers weren't really acting funny anymore as he was fairly sure he had gotten a handle on them, but it wasn't so long ago that they made poor Andrea's hair all wiggly and that, he was pretty sure, constituted funny. But surely that wasn't likely to happen again anytime soon?

"Wait, you failed someone because of it? Who did you fail? What happened? Can I help?" Something in his voice caused Juka to believe that it might have been something serious and, good friend that he was, he wanted to do whatever he could to help. He looked down at Saph in concern. Could that have had something to do with his nightmare?

Juka asked him if he was okay... He stood slowly, pushing himself up the wall."I'm fine... it aint me I'm worried about..." The older adopted a determined expression. "I'll tell you everything when we get inside... As of now we don't have time to chat, so we'll talk while we fight."

Without another word, he turned and entered the danger room, triggering the start-up for the program. "I don't know a damned thing about programming this room, so I decided just to use someone else's application..." A song(Yoshimi battles the pink robots) started playing loudly, and Saph turned to Juka. "I hope you don't mind pink, cause you're about to see a lot of it." He reached into his coat slowly, pulling out his crow bar... He was happy he'd remembered to tell Juka to bring his anvils; they were gonna need them.

Saph planted his feet and prepared himself as the city of new york popped out of the ground around them, and the familiar thumping of two gigantic pink robots echoed through the busy streets... The simulated crowd was already rushing in the opposite direction as loud explosions echoed about. "You better get ready... This'll be intense." Saph had been in this simulation recently with a few extra people, and it had been hard... somehow, he figured that even though their numbers were not as great, Juka and he could handle it... At least, that was the hope.

Something definitely seemed a bit off about Saph. He just didn't appear to be himself and Juka was starting to get worried. But if the other man didn't want to talk about it, there wasn't much he could do to force the issue, now was there? Maybe blowing off a little bit of energy in the Danger Room would do him good and then he could get the full story out of him and hopefully even do something to make it better. Hopefully.

Juka floated after Saph into the Danger Room, quite unsure of what to expect. He had heard about the place, of course, but this was the first time he had ever been inside. When the entire scene changed and the music started he could only stop and stare for a few seconds in wonderment at the detail and the scope of the effect. "Wow..."

Juka didn't have time to gape for long, however, as two giant pink robots suddenly appeared, causing the crowd to flee in terror. He sent his anvils rotating at high speeds around himself inside his floating bubble and nodded down at Saph. "Whenever you're ready."

Crash! BOOM!

The sound sound echoed through the simulation just as it had the last run. This meant that Saph knew what was coming. "The one on the right is gonna fire a missile first; don't let the flowers fool you, it's dangerous." Saph gave a glance Juka's way as he got ready, and threw his crowbar up into the air, letting it spin once, and catching it. He had spent the greater part of last night in new york, sitting at a bus stop with his eyes closed and 'feeling' the cars on the street go past... He couldn't feel the details quite yet: he was oblivious as to whether it was a sports car or a minivan that was bolting past him... but he could feel it there, like he was touching it, but not quite... Like it was reaching out to him.

It felt the same with Juka's anvils. As they started swinging around, he felt them; they were there... but they were just a huge blur. A smile came to his face; He wasn't sure if he was just imagining this, but why not? Why couldn't he feel things moving around him?

He decided then and there that he would never distrust his body like he had when Andrea had been kidnapped; he would do everything he could to accept and expand on what was happening to his body so that he could save her; so that he could never fail anyone like that ever again.

He gave a determined nod, and clenched his fist around his crowbar. " We'll take out the first to separately... You get the missile launching one; I got a bone to pick with the claw thrower. Lets do this."

And with that, the first giant robot fired off a gigantic pretty pink missile at them. Saph dove off to the side, and hopes Juka would do that same. Behind his cover, a parked car, he waited for the missile to start on it's path; just like last time it wasn't headed for him, but rather his partner, Juka.

Saph knew that they had to work together, but he also knew that he had to learn to depend on Juka as a team mate; what better way to show that trust than to be confident that he could handle a giant robot on his own? Saph felt a tingle, and dove from his cover just in time for a large claw-on-a-rope to smack into the car, crushing it into scrap.

Juka only had a moment to wonder what kind of person would design a program with giant killer robots covered in floral print before the missile he was warned about shot out directly at him. It was only because of the warning that he was able to dodge the missile, mentally jerking his bubble hard to the right and putting one of the anvils out in the way of the missile. The missile collided with the anvil in a bright explosion, the force of it forcing his bubble to spin off several feet before he managed to regain control of it. The anvil, hard dense metal that it was, was mostly unscathed except for a slight impression where the missile had hit and a large black smoke stain.

"Can these things actually kill us?" This was Juka's first experience in the Danger Room and that seemed like a very good thing to know. He was all about practice, even dangerous practice that could potentially hurt him, but death seemed like the sort of risk that he only wanted to take in real life and even then he'd rather avoid it if at all possible. Surely there must be some safety measure in place, just in case?

Juka had never fought giant flying robots before but, so long as they didn't kill him, he figured it would make for an interesting experience. He sent his anvils spinning around him at high speeds. The trick would be to keep aware of the missile firing mechanism on the robot so as to either avoid said missile or stop it with an anvil, while at the same time going on the offense. He might be good at dodging but he could only dodge for so long before the machine got lucky and he wasn't about to let that happen if he had anything to do with it.

Patiently, Juka waited for a second missile to be fired and this one, because he knew it was coming, was dodged much easier. As it approached him at high speeds, he moved his bubble above it at the last moment and it crashed into a nearby building with an audible *BANG* as rubble went everywhere. They weren't getting points for avoiding environmental damage were they? A moment after the missile was fired, he darted into range, anvils swinging as hard as they could at maximum range.

Saph rolled to his feet, coming to a stop in a crouch, staring at his enemy. Juka spoke up, and Saph responded. "No, there's a protocol to make sure we don't die; but we can still get hurt."

The giant robot shook it's claw free of the car it had destroyed, and then retracted the sharp weapon back into it's place at the end of it's robot wrist. The hulking metal beast targeted the older mutant again, and fired it's shot. Saph quickly hopped to the side, feeling the claw rush past him.

There it was... That was the feeling; it was like he was touching it from all angles, but at the same time, not. The claw slammed into the ground behind him; he felt that, but when the claw was still, not moving, not hitting anything, it was like he couldn't feel it anymore. He looked over at the claw for a moment, a dumb-struck quality about his face. That was it, huh? He could feel it when it was moving; when it had force behind it, but when it was still, he couldn't. He nodded slowly; it made perfect sense in accordance to his mutation. "Hah! I've got it!" The claw retracted, and zoomed past him again on the way back; Saph relished in the feeling of the large metal weapon whizzing past him.

Saph had relaxed too much, though; he'd forgotten that the robot had two arms, and while it had had two targets last time he was here, this time it only had one. Him. The other arm aimed and fired.

Saph felt a tingle, and then his eyes widened as his body snapped around like a cat spinning so that it's feet touched the ground rather than it's back. The claw impacted solidly with his right arm, and he fell back to the ground with a pained thump. The claw retracted as Saph sat up, and looked down at his arm... Even with his force absorption the claw has still managed to create a pretty nasty gash. He winced and clenched his teeth as he climbed to his feet. He felt another tingle, and dove, feeling the first claw zoom past him again, and with barely a second of breathing room, the next claw was on it's way to him. He scrambled out of the way on all fours, narrowly escaping injury. "Aww jesus!" This was harder than he'd thought it would be! He wondered how Juka was fairing, but was too busy diving out of the way of the next attack to look.

Juka did not like giant robots, especially giant robots who also happened to be shooting large and potentially dangerous missiles at him. That fact was decided in rather definitive fashion as another missile flew in his direction and he barely manged to dodge it, missile slamming into the ground and causing a rather sizable crater. Had he ever liked giant robots? Had he ever said that mechs were cool? If so, he was definately about to reevalute those particular opinions!

Juka prepared himself mentally to confront the metal monstrosity in as direct a fashion as he knew how: swoop in and pummel it to death with heavy metal anvils which would render it a crushed and abused mass of metal. That was, at least, how the plan worked inside his head. Unfortunately how it worked in reality was not quite so effective.

The successful parts of Juka's plan involved actually floating close enough to the monstrous machine to hit it with his anvils. He was also successful in striking it not once, but twice. Unfortunately that was where his success stopped. Instead of his devistating anvils crushing the machine's metalic exoskeleton and destroying its sensitive machinery underneath (at least he assumed it must have sensative machinery), all it succeeded in doing was creating a couple of large dents. Flying dath machines, it seemed, were resistant to avil attacks.

Even more unfortunate for Juka, once the second strike was landed, his enemy once again fired a missile. With no chance to actually dodge this time and barely enough of a chance to see it before it smashed into him, it was all Juka could do to bring an anvil in front of him causing the missile to collide with the metal anvil rather than his much more vulnerable flesh, likely saving his life. Or saving his life if his life were actually at risk. The force of the blast, however, forced him back and he smashed into the brick wall of a building, likely resulting in more bruises than he had experienced since Clay Cthulu. He groaned in unhappy pain.

Another loud explosion told Saph that things might not be going too well for Juka. Saph was having the same problem. He purposely overextended his reflex so that he would fall to the ground before the next claw came. It passed inches over him, and he rolled to the side, jumping to his feet in a speed hobble just as the other claw smacked into the ground and skid past.

He was feeling the energy from that first blow; the one that had left the gash before... It's tingle carried past his wrist and up to his mid forearm. He figured it might be enough to do something, but he wanted more... Another claw flew at him, he hopped to the side, and felt it rush past...

He got the odd feeling that he was missing something as he hopped back again and the other claw spun past... It was like he was holding up his hand, looking at just his palm, and figuring that was all that was there. He had to turn his hand around; look at the other side... How could he do that? The only way he knew how; a leap of faith.

The next claw fired at him, and he didn't move. Smack! He spun in place as the claw glanced off of his right side, and he fell to the ground. The man slowly got up again, wincing painfully... He stood to his full height, and waited for the next claw. He didn't have to wait long. It bashed into his right shoulder, and left him lying on the floor, somewhat dazed with a heavy claw lying on him. The claw slid off, and he got up slowly, sporting a huge tear on his coat, and a superficial, but painful wound where the claw had impacted... His whole arm was buzzing as he climbed to his feet again... He had to made this work... Something had to happen. His body was screaming at him to do something and he didn't know what it was...

The next claw was ready to fire. He stood to his full height, and prepared. He heard the pop of a distant claw firing off in his direction, and watched with determined eyes as it spun towards him. And then it came to him. He couldn't do it... he had no clue what he was supposed to do! The older mutant closed his eyes at the last second, fearing the worst.

And nothing happened. His eyes opened to the sight of the claw hanging in mid air right in front of his face, and then like the water from a freshly broken dam, it came rushing to him; the force behind the claw's flight; it was his, and the sharp instrument hadn't even hit him! He acted quickly as the claw started to drop, smacking his left hand up to apply some force to the bottom of the bladed hand, causing it to spin end over end, so that the sharp part was towards it's owner. One more push, and the added zest of a good chunk of the energy he'd gathered from being hit three times, and the claw was rocketing right back the way it came.

The robot had no time to react as it's own bladed claw slammed deep into it's electronic forehead, and triggered the recall protocol. As the claw retracted, it ripped the machine's head clear off. The giant metal beast stumbled momentarily, and then faltered, falling back and crashing loudly into the ground below.

The older mutant stared for a second, and then exhaled the deep breath he had taken, gasping heavily... What ever he had just done, it had taken a lot out of him... He felt a tingle heading for his back, and knew right away what it was. In one clean movement he spun, threw his crowbar with all of his remaining force, and then fell onto his bottom.

He was greeted to the sight of that quick bot who had given him a real flogging before falling to the ground, impaled by his crowbar. "Heh... Sorry, pal. Saw you comin this time."

Not only did Juka not like big giant scary robots that shot missiles at him, but he was also not a big fan of bruises either, not in the slightest. Maybe if he was masochistic like Saph and gained strength out of the whole deal, but that was, alas, simply not the case. Nor was it the case that bubbles offered much protection. Or no protection, as the case was proving to be. If he got out of this whole ordeal alive, he wouldn't be able to sit for a week, he was sure of it.

Just as Juka floated away from the wall, pile of bruises and all, another missile flew in his direction but this one he saw and managed to dodge. The wall, previous bane of his pain-ridden body, was reduced to rubble. Or at least a large whole in the center was reduced the rubble. If it could do that to walls he didn't even want to consider what it could do to living breathing human bodies.

As the robot reloaded and prepared to fire yet again, Juka took the time to clearly observe it and its outer workings. Clearly its armour was strong enough that simply smashing it with his anvils wasn't going to do much. He could see the dents he had made previously, but it would take an awful lot of anvil shots to incapacitate it that was and he was pretty sure his dodging and blocking skills would fail him before his anvils destroyed the thing. The weak point appeared to be the area in which the missiles were exiting the contraption and that was something he could work with. Hopefully.

Another missile shot out of the thing, which Juka circled above and around. Instead of continuing to flee this time, however, he let his momentum carry him closer to the flying robot. Once in range, two anvils flew around to collide with the missile exit point, denting it enough to partially close off the entrance to the missile. A moment later the thing tried to fire off another missile but was unable to due to the block in the opening and, mere seconds after that, an explosion rocked through the machine. Once again the shockwaves from the explosion knocked Juka back, though he managed to stop himself before colliding with any other hard and painful objects. Once back in control of himself, he looked where the robot had previously been and was satisfied to find a smoking pile of scrap metal in its place. He turned to see how Saph was faring.

Saph was yanking his crowbar free of the fastbot's face when he heard the explosion that signified the missilebot's destruction, he smirked just a little as he flipped the weapon on the air, catching it again, and turning to Juka...

Jees, he looked a little beat up. "What's the matter, Jukes, can't handle a little pink pea shooter?" he joked, and then paused when he realized how wrong that sounded on second thought... He snapped to attention the moment he recalled that they didn't have time to think twice. "Juka, watch out!" the pile of scrap suddenly erupted with movement, sending a great volley of small pink robots into the sky to rain down upon them. Saph moved quickly, moving to get under his floating ally. "You get high, I get low... there's gonna be a lot of them, but they ain't strong. If we can weather this out the next one should be a cakewalk!" He prepared his crowbar as the mob started to land around them...

In a movement that would seem odd, the mutant closed his eyes. Bring it on, pink robots, I'll fight you blindfolded! At least, he hoped he could... He felt a tingle at his side, and felt a small shape darting toward him. Saphirus swung, hearing a loud CLANK in response... one down. fifty more to go.