Shin arrived in the Danger Room bright and early on the first day of tryouts. He'd been briefed on who was to be tested by Sam, and agreed to run the tests at the ice man's request. Shin had had a good deal of time to come up with interesting tests for Juka and Saphirus. He figured today would be fun, if they succeeded. After arriving, he'd programmed the text into the computer, tapping in objectives, requirements, blue turtles.

Juka and Saphirus were supposed to arrive at 11 that morning. He'd given them messages detailing the where and the when, and special privilages to enter the Danger Room. Shin finished his programming with an hour to spare. He left for breakfast, and got back 30 minutes before they'd arrive.

He sat on a lawn chair on the verdant green center of the Danger Room, waiting. Hands were clasped on his crossed leg. Who would be the first to show up, he wondered. Time would tell.

His eyes drifted to hedge maze around him, and the various booby traps blocking the pair from reaching him on time. Traps aimed for land, traps aimed for air. That would be the first test, making it. They'd see how the two fared on the second test when they arrived.

The only clue they'd been given to the nature of the test was on the outside of the Danger Room door.

Enter if you dare. I'm in the center, but to reach me, you'll have to beat the maze. Good luck. You have fifteen minutes,

-- Shin

((OOC: The first test is to reach Shin in the center of the hedge maze. Feel free to create booby traps to block your path on the way there, but don't use anything lethal. No machine guns, no lasers, no spiked pits and saw blades. Paintball guns are okay! Strong winds to blow you off-course, and robots to block your path, too. Feel free to get creative. PS: There's a Blastoise!

This thread falls on June 2nd, 2010))

For once in recent memory Juka was one time, a fact that he was quite proud of. Of course, that had more to do with the fact that Shin had very helpfully sent him a text message with all the relevant details than the fact that he had known ahead of time that he really should return to the Mansion. A skill that he was pretty sure that Saph needed to learn and one which he was going to teach the other man just as soon as he had time.

Juka returned from yet another morning spent in the library (what a wondrous place he had discovered there, filled with all sorts of books) at 10 am, giving him plenty of time to make sure his hair and makeup were perfect and to get into his epic Green Mage costume, complete with matching green ninja mask. Why would someone spend to much time making sure makeup with impeccable and then cover it up with a ninja mask? If someone bothered to ask Juka that very question, he would answer that it was all about mindset. When he knew he was perfect, his mind was in the mindset of win and win thoughts were half way to win actions.

Once Juka was absolutely positive that everything was up to his impeccably high standards, he grabbed his trusty anvils and floated his way down to the Danger Room. Having found the message waiting for him, and having no idea what was in store, he decided that Saph had exactly 3 minutes to appear and if he did not magically appear, then Juka would go in without him.

Saph was just on time.

He strolled up to the danger room doors with a determined look on his face; he had spent all night practicing with his powers, and his training had only intensified when he found out about the try-out. The timing was perfect; he'd just spent a good amount of time training with his partner, and the time he'd spent alone had shown some real improvement. He'd really found a lot of things out.

The older mutant stepped on up next to his partner, not saying anything, but rather just making eye contact, and nodding before he moved to open up the door. He knew before the door even opened that he and Juka had this clinched; they were one helluva team. They matched up in power pretty naturally, and Saph trusted the kid with his life. What he didn't know was what exactly they were getting themselves into.

He read the message outside the door, and showed no reaction; did he understand it? Not really. Did it matter? Not really. The door slid open, and Saph allowed room for Juka to head in as well.

Saph was greeted to a rather odd sight... A hedge maze? The place looked... Colorful; oddly so... Like they were in some kinda NES game or something. His serious demeanor faltered for a moment as he scratched the back of his head, and looked over to Juka. "Eh... Well, I guess we'd better get started..."

"Computer. Display the entrance camera footage," Shin said. In front of him, a holographic image screen sprang up. It hovered in the air, flickering slightly. Footage of the entrance streamed by. A man in a green costume stood by the entrance. Shin eyed the man's costume.

Hmmm... stylish. Whoever he was.

There still wasn't any sign of Saphirus.

He waited a tiny bit. Then, Saph arrived.

"Great. Computer, start the clock. And give me a mircrophone." He stuck out his hand. A microphone appeared in it. A moment later, a giant digital readout appeared projected high above the hedge maze in the room. 15:00:00 showed on the readout. Shin brought the microphone up to his mouth, and announced "Go!!" The readout came to life, counting down the seconds and portions of seconds until time was up. That was their warning to book it. Time was counting down, people! Get your heads in the game!

((OOC: Go wild! You both have free reign to make wild boobytraps... So long as they aren't lethal... I'll post from time to time, but don't feel you have to wait on me. I'll post again, once Juka and Saph get to the center.))

"Hey Massochist," Juka waved happily as Saph finally arrived. "How about we kick this maze's ass, yes?" He peeked inside, surprised to see not just any maze, but a rather colorfulness maze. A rather colorful maze with some rather familiar features. Features that should not be in the real world. Features, it seemed, that were taken directly from video games, a fact Juka knew because of friends who played for hours in his presence.

The bushes that made up the maze itself weren't bushes at all, but rather densely put together little green dome-like treese, straight out of Super Mario Brothers 3. Floating into the maze itself he looked up to see fluffy white clouds, a very blue sky and an orange sun, all of which appeared to be straight out of a Mario game. He blinked and looked back at Saph. "Is this what I think it is?"

Juka's first thought, upon entering the maze, was that he could, perhaps, simply float above it and get to the end that way, bringing Saph along for the ride. It struck him as a little bit too easy but he had to try just in case. Maybe Shin had conveniently forgotten the fact that he could float? He began rising into the air but the moment he got above the treeline, the little orange sun that looked so sweet and innocent way up in the sky, spun around in a circle and then dive bombed him. Juka barely managed to dodge without getting singed by the evil animated sun before returning to the ground. "Well, I guess floating out of here is out of the question." He glared at the sun which he could swear was smirking down at him.

Juka sure had been in a good mood, ninja mask and all. Saph couldn't help but smile in response; what a wacky kid that Juka was.

He glanced to the maze again, and shook his head slowly; it was like his childhood all over again. He used to sneak into one of his adopted older brother's rooms and play his Nintendo when no one was home and he was skipping school. He'd beaten Super Mario more times than he could count, so he could definitely see the likeness here. "Yeah... Looks like it is." He heard a loud announcement made by none other than Shin, and looked up at the large clock. They were on a time limit. Juka immediately did what Saph would have done, tried to get over the maze, but he was attacked by a giant sun.

"Well, If going over ain't an option, then let's get started; we can get this." Saph started toward the mazes entrance, pulling out his crowbar; he needed to be ready for anything. He felt his leg snag on a wire, which snapped, causing him to look down at it just in time to get hit in the face with a flying pie. The man stumbled back and fell on his bottom, pulling the pie pan from his face with a growl. "F#$%ING REALLY?! A PIE?!" He jumped up and shook his fist at the air. A few seconds of wiping clean, and he was on his way into the entrance again, keeping his eyes low for trip wires.

He felt a click as his foot landed on a pressure plate. A pie fell from up high and plopped down on his head like a hat. He stood there for a moment, sighed, and looked back to Juka. "I'm gonna punch him when we get to the middle..." He didn't bother removing his new hat... He figured the traps would get worse and worse the further they got into the maze, so he might as well enjoy the easy ones, right? He stepped back to let Juka go first.

Juka sent one more angry glare it the malicious sun before getting down to business. So, if he couldn't simply float over the hedge maze, he'd just have to get through it the old fashioned way. Or if not the old fashioned way, because floating was not exactly old fashioned, then at least not the amzingly flying sort of way.

Floating a few feet behind Saph, the moment the pie came flying at his friend's face, Juka couldnt' help but giggle. Even if he managed to suppress the giggle almost as soon as it erupted from his mouth, he could only hope he hadn't done irreperable damage with it. But pies. Really. They were funny. And creative. And, well, with his transluscent bubble he was completely immune to pie goo and therefore it was somebody else who would suffer the sweet whipcreamy wrath. And that somebody else, as it turned out, was Saph.

When Saph stepped aside for Juka to take the lead, he didn't say a thing, just floated along in front of him, trying oh so desperately to suppress further giggles. Which he succeeded at. Mostly. Everything went very well and very easily the next several meters into the maze. It seemed Juka taking the lead was just what was most needed and no further pies or anything else appeared. Until, that is, he floated right into another wire, this one closer to chest height. Apparently the designer of the maze had known that he would be floating and not walking.

At first Juka didn't think that the wire had triggered anything and he was about to turn back to Saph to tell him as much when a shiny object fell from a white fluffy cloud. He turned back to the cloud just in time to see a second shiny object fall from the sky, an object that looked pecular and...coin shaped? He only had just enough time to identify the falling coin when another coin was dropped by the grinning white cloud directly onto his head, with a painfully audible thump. "Hey, I thought coins were good!" The next object the cloud dropped was a little spiky ball and as painful as the coin had been he was pretty sure he would like the orange spiked ball even less. Glaring, while cathartic, did not seem to be the most effective defence.

Saph wiped another lump of pie from his face, and gave Juka the stink eye for the giggle. He grumbled lowly like Yosemite Sam, and got to getting all of the confection off of his face as they continued down. The stuff was sticky, but with time he was clearing it all off.

He noticed Juka had stopped, he blinked a few times and looked up to him, hearing a coin drop, and then the thump of one smacking into his partners head... What the? He looked further up, and his eyes widened at the sight of a tiny spiky ball falling towards Juka's head. He moved quickly, pulling back his crowbar and flinging it just hard enough; he was happy he'd been throwing this thing so long that he had gotten pretty accurate.

The curved weapon flew end over end, smacked into the spiky ball just as it was about to hit Juka's head, and then both fell to the ground at their feet. Saph walked on over to collect his crowbar, and then eyed the little spiky ball as well, shrugging and picking it up as well; you never know if it would come in handy... Another spikey ball hit his right shoulder, and he blinked as it rolled to the ground.

They were still being attacked. He looked up to see the culprit Juka had already spotted. "You alright, Juka? You gotta watch out for that stuff, budd-ow!" A coin smacked him in the crown, causing him to wince visibly. "Little bastard!" He smacked himself five times quickly with his crowbar, and then sent the weapon spinning through the air at the cloud-man. WHAM! The creature went all spirally eyed and fell to the ground. Saph blinked a few times as he realized that he'd just thrown his Crowbar deep into the maze. "Aww, man... Whatever... Lets keep going! We don't have forever." He turned and walked towards the next bend in the maze, smiling a little bit as he went. "Hey, I rhymed... "

He turned the corner to see a corridor with a bunch of what looked like large green plumbing tubes on either side. He looked back to Juka, and shrugged. He'd played mario enough to know that you generally walked through them, but why do that when they could just continue down the path. Saph started walking, and was surprised when a giant flower monster poked its head from one of the pipes and shot a whirling fireball at him.

He fell back on his bottom; his surprise dodging for him. The little ball of fire simply went about it's business, moving just a little too slow for comfort until it fizzled out.

The older mutant let out a laugh, and looked up to Juka. "That was close..." He spoke to soon, because heads started poking out of all of the pipes, each shooting their own fireballs. Soon there was a steady stream of fire flying their way. Saph dove around the corner, wondering just how they were gonna get past this obstacle.

(The fireballs will just sting a lot when they hit)

As Saph saved Juka from the spiky pain-filled orange ball of doom, he thought about apologizing for his earlier giggle but didn't get the chance as another spiky ball and another coin both fell from the evil looking cloud, aimed right for his head. With a fast thought, he brought his anvils around, arranging them so they each touched one another, forming a sort of square metal umbrella over his head. First the spiky ball fell on his anvilbrella, rolling off the edge and then the coin shortly afterward.

"I think I'll be fine, my brave hero," Juka answered, watching Saph's crowbar sail into an unknown portion of the maze. "What kind of twisted mind created this maze anyway?" About the last thing he ever expected to be doing, whether it was to apply to join the X-Men or for any other reason, was to wander through some twisted Nintendo labyrinth.

Juka's first impressions of the green plumbing pipes were not particularly threatening. He was familiar enough with Mario that he recognized the pipes instantly. Even when the first flower first stuck its head out of the pipe, he didn't immediately think that it was a threat. How frightening could a flower really be? As it turned out, very frightening when that flower also happened to blow little balls of fire!

The first ball of fire Juka managed to avoid, but then fire spitting flowers began appearing from all of the pipes, each of them aiming their insidious little balls of flame at the two of them and while the flames moved just a little bit slower than flames really should move (actually they shouldn't move at all should they?), with that many it was impossible to dodge them all. One of the balls of fire hit him on the shoulder and she shrieked in rather feminine fashion. If not for his bubble he was sure there would probably be the scent of burning hair wafting through the air.

Out of the corner of his eye Juka noticed a single pipe without a flower coming out of it. He pointed, "We need to get in there as quickly as possible!" Trusting Saph to follow, Juka ran for it, getting hit by 2 more little balls of fire in the process, but making it to the pipe more or less all in one piece.

Entering the pipe provided yet another in a long string of surreal experiences. Instead of the inside of the pipe being green, as expected, it was orange and instead of being smooth like the inside of a pipe should be, it was more like dirt. With a backwards glance at Saph and a shrug of his shoulders, Juka walked further into the 'pipe' where he came to a T shaped junction. To one side of the T was what looked like a blown up balloon dragon complete with fire breathing breath and to the other side was what he could only assume was a human in a white suite and mask. In his hands he carried what looked like a bike pump. Neither the balloon dragon nor the beekeeper man had yet seen Juka but they had to choose a path soon and as soon as they did, one or both of them was sure to spot them and then who knew what they would do.

Saph saw Juka make his move, and followed right on his tail, whipping off his coat and beating as many of the fireballs out of the way as he could. During the struggle down the hallway, he managed to make it without getting harmed by a fireball, mostly because his coat, which was now smoldering and useless, and Juka had been in the way of the attacks.

He skid to a stop next to his partner in what looked like a split in the path... a perfectly T shaped split... with...a guy with a hose and a dragon... "Dig...dug?" He stared for a moment, at a complete loss for words, and then turned to Juka. "R...really?" He started laughing at the absurdity of it all, but was interrupted when a hose rocketed past his face, causing him to fall back. He followed it's path to the dragon, who was now being pumped up...

Once, twice, Splat! It popped like a balloon, thankfully leaving no mess. "Holy..." He turned to look at the digger, who had leveled his sights on them. Saph instinctively reached for his crowbar, which.... wasn't... there... "Crap...."

"Dig...dug?"

Juka was having difficulty believing it himself. What kind of sick and twisted person not only brought the bright and colourful world of Mario to life but also created and underground Dig Dug land? They must have a very disturbed mind indeed and they must greatly desire the mental suffering of both himself and Saph. Oh, Shin would surely feel their revenge at the end of this little task. Most certainly.

Juka jumped at the sound of the exploding dragon balloon, or at least he would have had he not currently been floating in his bubble. Instead his bubble did a sort of hopping motion upwards, before returning to its usual floating height. Although reasonably certain his own bubble wasn't able to be popped like that, he really did not want to find out first hand. Popping looked horrifically painful.

"Guess its up to me then," Juka commented, staring straight at his foe with his best intimidating glare. As it turned out, his best intimidating glare was not very intimidating as the little white man with the bike pump didn't even appear to notice, simply walking forward, death in his eyes. Or at least he assumed there was death in the little humanoid's eyes since he wasn't actually able to see its eyes beyond the mask.

Juka prepared himself until the man got close enough to strike, trying to remember what he knew about Dig Dug. If he remembered correctly, the characters in the game were balloons that could be blown up, just like the enemies. That meant...maybe they needed to be exploded. Or maybe hitting them with anvils would do.

The beekeeper man sent out his bike pump in Juka's direction and he dodged dexterously, floating just above the line of the attack. Simultaneously he sent down one of his anvils, hitting the man directly on the head and...having the anvil bounce off again with no apparent damage. The anvil. Bounced off of him. It. Whatever. "Oh oh. I think we need something pointy."

"Heh. I got this."
Pointy. Saph had this covered. His suvenir from the cloud-man was out and in his hand in seconds. He tested spiky item's weight in his hand for a moment, and then cranked it back and threw it with all of his might.

It hit the balloon man solidly, and for a moment, it just stuck in the digger's forehead. The tunneling foe reached up to aim his pump at Saph, but was interrupted by a high pitched whining. It looked over to it's hand, which was beginning to deflate, and then blinked one last time before the spiky ball shot off of it's head, widening the hole, and making it shoot of to the side like a released balloon. Saph couldn't help but laugh as he walked on over to where Mr.Dig-Dug had been standing, eying something he had dropped. "Hey, look...." It was a drill with a button attached. "It's his drill thingy!"
He turned and waved Juka over before grabbing the handle. He looked left and right, and then to the button once more... his curiosity had gotten the best of him. He had to press it. Why would this game have a button that he wasn't supposed to press, right?

"Lets see what this thing can do, huh?" And with that, a button was pressed, and a small drill suddenly tripled in size and aimed right up. Saph was off of his feet before he knew it, clinging onto the drill handle for dear life as he rocketed through the earth, letting out a long, drawn out word that would make any Mormon cry. Before he knew it he'd broken the surface. He let go, and landed on a rocky ground. The drill, however, kept going on up into the sky.

He sat there for a moment, trying to take what had just happened in... This was crazy! His eyes wandered up to the clock, still plastered into the sky. Five minutes left... they were running low on time! "Come on up, it's safe! hurry!" He yelled down the hole before turning to a large pipe off to the right... A good bit of hobbling, and he was at the mouth. He figured Juka would be right behind him, so he walked right on in.

He knew something was up right away when he saw a giant monkey with a princess in his arms standing at the end of a long, slanted hallway.... The monkey gave him a dirty look, set the princess down, and then magically materialized a huge barrel... The beast of a primate threw barrel one, and then materialized another... and another... and another, faster and faster until they were rolling down as plentiful as rain drops in down pour... Saph did the only thing he could... He started jumping.

It was kind of funny to watch the balloon man deflate and were it any other situation, Juka would have laughed out loud at it. Now, however, was the time for business not amusement and the business of the day included two things. First, he and Saph needed to get out of this twisted video game game maze and second, once they did get out of the maze, they had to kill Shin for creating it. Because Juka knew the triangle man was certain to be getting a sadistic pleasure out of their suffering.

The moment Saph picked up the drill thing, Juka felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. This was not going to end well, strange buttons should not simply be pushed. Of course, if he were in the same situation he would have done the exact same thing because strange buttons, of course, presented an unignorable allure, but that clearly was not the point. The moment Saph did press the button, we went careening up through the dirt, until the sun could be seen through the long upward tunnel and Juka floated after him, stopping as soon as he was back above solid ground. "Well, I guess that answers the question about what the button does."

A glance at the sky clock showed Juka that their time was beginning to run out and they only had 5 minutes left. With a shrug, he followed Saph into yet another green tunnel, hoping that this time they wouldn't be confronted with fire breathing and drill wielding balloon people. On the positive side, they most certainly were not confronted with any more balloon people. On the negative side, they were confronted with a giant monkey dropping barrels down a slanted hallway, right at them.

Juka knew this giant monkey very well and his name was Donkey Kong. Taking a look high above, Juka noticed a giant red button on a platform next to the giant monkey. "Hold tight," Juka told Saph, hoping the other man would be able to continue jumping until he reached the button which he could only hope would cause the monkey to plummet to his doom. The barrels, of course, were no threat to the floating bubbler who simply floated over them with no risk to himself. Part way up, however, he was confronted with another problem, this one in the form of birds, each with two balloons strapped to their back. Birds that were now proceeding to divebomb Juka.

"Shin, I am going to kill you as soon as I find you," Juka yelled out, dodging the first bird that came at him.

Shin blinked innocently at whatever it was that was happening in the maze. Certainly, he couldn't have been responsible for all this chaos? No. At least some of it must have been the fault of the underlying program Cold Steel had made.

Shin looked up at the digital clock slowly counting down. They needed to up the pace, whatever it was they were attempting to do. They still hadn't reached him! He wasn't amazed yet.

They needed to up their game.

Jumping these barrels was easier said than done. they were large, and while getting over one was easy, getting over ten as they rocketed toward you at breakneck pace. He stumbled and fumbled his way toward the giant monkey, and their goal, as fast as he could, but he could see that he wasn't making any real progress...

And then something came to his mind... There were barrels on the ground, and floating something or others up high.... what about in the middle?

"Juka! launch me!" He knew that in order to pull this one off, he would have to be launched straight toward their foe rather than in a wide-arching path... but he had a plan for that as well... Saph suddenly wished he had his crowbar on him, but he decided to make due with something a little more improvised... another barrel rolled toward him, and he stopped it with a downward fist, cracking it wide open... He then wrenched free a plank. He looked back to Juka, and nodded, bearing that same wild look on his face.