Keep going, Katrina: he is quite pleased with us. Slate relayed, as they snuck past the woman and downstairs. No one was the wiser when they suddenly appeared in front of the Danger Room's doors.

Shin also had quite the sense of humor, as Slate had heard from others—he'd caught the man thinking about how much easier having a telepath would make coordinating their movements. That was a joke, yes? Slate's lips imperceptibly twitched—'imperceptible,' in quite the literal sense. He did not reply: X-Leaders were certainly allowed to joke through try-outs, but he did not think it would be appropriate for the trainees to behave so lightly. Clearly, this was another facet of their test.

Perhaps a slight display of humor on his own part would not be unreasonable, however? Teams were about teamwork. Teamwork was about how well differing personalities matched.

So he said, with a carefully measured ironic smile:

Katrina did the hard work.

Katrina was encouraged by Shin's exclamation. Apparently they were doing well. Slate gave her the credit, and since they were all in such a festive, happy, informal mood, Katrina gave a little bow.

Now all they had to do was get through the actual danger room session, which was, truthfully, the part that worried her the most. Since the danger room couldn't actually sense when her powers worked, because they only worked on people that had regular senses and not on machines, she was basically no different to the computer than a human would be. Slate, with telepathy, probably wouldn't be any better off.

She trusted Shin though, to make sure they didn't die. Whatever they were going to face, Shin would surely turn off the program before It ever had a chance to do them serious harm.

The teen illusionist bounced in nervous anticipation, frowning at the door just a little. We can do this. She didn't sound all that confident, even in her own head.

Shin looked towards the telepath with a carefully measured blink. Long enough to show surprise. Not long enough to show any stupidity or lack of knowledge on his part. Maybe. Perhaps. Did it matter. X-leaders were, in fact, allowed to be all sorts of things.

Slacker. Was the first word that came to mind. Quickly followed by Guess he can read minds, then. And a similar smile.

"I hadn't actually known you could do that." Shin said aloud. To both of them. "Anything else the two of you are holding back about your powers? I need to know, if I want to design an adequate test to your skills" that will not kill you. He let the thought finish in his head.

Slate did prefer not to die, when given the choice. It was most inconvenient, and generally painful, in his abnormally extensive experience.

"Perhaps it would be wiser if we elaborated upon our abilities before entering into a simulation?" The former Faction leader suggested mildly. Knowing the skills of one's employees was generally advisable. 'Holding back' did not seem entirely fair of a description to Slate, when the X-Leader had never asked.

"I am a healer, as I believe you know; this encompasses physical injuries only, excludes physical injuries that have already caused brain death, and requires physical contact in all instances." Fatal injuries that were merely in the rapid process of causing death were just fine. Again: he believed Shin knew that. "My telepathy is initially touch-based; afterwards, its range is in approximate proportion to the duration and frequency of contact. I am still working on the precise formula."

Though really, the less the X-Leader knew they could do, presumably the less fatal this test would be. Being underestimated did have that merit.

Katrina looked at her feet, then at Slate, then finally back to Shin again. Did she really have to tell him? No. No she didn't, at least not everything.

“So, invisibility is taking away someone's sight of something, right? I can also take away feeling. You know, numbing people in pain and things like that.”

'Things like that' covers quite a bit more, but he doesn't need to know that.

She still didn't completely trust people, especially not ones who were likely to make notes about it in her school records where anyone could see it. It was slightly easier with other kids, especially when they all relied on each others' abilities to help save the world. The X-men were saving things a whole lot smaller than the world. Villages, boroughs, cities maybe occasionally... but not the whole world.

“So... what kind of challenge do you have in store for us?”

Slate agreed. And so. Shin listened to his power description. He knew the healer part. The telepathy was news to him. It was interesting. As for Katrina...

Katrina could take away feeling, as well as sight.

"Does that include the sense of hearing as well?"

Touch and sight were impressive. Touch, sight, and sound? That was more than impressive. It was Ninja-worthy.

Was Kat a ninja?

As for the session...

Hm. What would put those talents to good use?

"Let's get inside the Danger Room," Shin said. "I'll set it up, once we're in."

That said, he led. Into the Danger Room. He left them downstairs, and went up towards the God Room. Then, he started fiddling with the computer. The room shifted towards a city street, and then a mural of a blastoise appeared in graffiti on the wall.

The danger room doors slid shut as an explosion rocked the block. A terrorist attack at a small French cafe. People lay wounded on the ground, while others fled. Quickly, the scene shifted to chaos.

Shin did not tell them what to do. He'd probably have to give them giant robots or something in another session, to test their hand-to-hand. For now, this was easy. A warm-up test perfectly suited to their skills. They'd probably figure out what they had to do without him telling them. Thus, he kept on saying zilch.

"Well. This is straight-forward," Slate said simply as the program opened on a blast of wind and debris. They were on a street; the initial setting was that of an explosion. A small-scale one. Slate had never seen a small-scale one. There were injured people; some running (these did not need his help) and some lying on the ground, in various states of movement or a lack thereof (these likely did). The obvious course of action would be to provide that service: he was a healer, after all.

He was also the former Kabal Leader, and knew something about bombings.

We should ascertain the source of the explosion: it may have been accidental, or not; the perpetrators may have left, or still be present. The bombing may have been their real objective... or not.

Could you make an illusion of us which goes to help the injured? Perhaps we can see if that triggers anything. I would otherwise suggest that we find a phone in a neighboring building, and call the police for backup.

The police had bomb squads, and a propensity to work together with the X-Men. Shin had not told them that they could not call in backup. Shin had not told them much of anything at all.

I would also suggest we speak through telepathic means, unless we wish Shin or the targets to overhear us.

As their test proctor, it was fair to equate Shin with the enemy, for all tactical purposes.

Katrina gave kind of a noncommittal half shrug when he mentioned taking away sound. Sure she could, smell, too.

The scene quickly shifted soon after Shin disappeared up the stairs. Katrina wasn't sure what to expect. Even though she'd watched a tryout once, the Danger Room could really be anything it wanted at any time. Or rather, it could be half of what it wanted. The other half was made up of illusions or holograms or whatever magical mirage images that were similar enough to what she could do that she could see through them as if they were her own.

A semi transparent Blastoise appeared in front of them. Behind it was an abandoned arcade, filled with busted old machines that no one played any more. Experimentally, Katrina put her hand against the wall. It felt a little fuzzy, like it wasn't quite solid, but it still wasn't going to let her go through it.

Shin didn't happen to think about what the win conditions were, did he? He certainly hadn't said what he wanted them to do. That made it more like a real life situation. Disaster could strike at any moment, and they had to be prepared to make decisions in a split second without any directions.

Apparently this was as much a test of their decision making process as it was of their abilities.

A foreign cafe. An explosion. People running in confusion. Wrestling the gun out of Gavrilo's hand. Katrina blinked away the memory; she couldn't afford to be distracted right now.

Sorry. Yes. Both good ideas.

He was thinking much faster on his feet than she was.

As Slate suggested, she split off illusion clones of themselves that ran toward the scene of the crime while their real selves disappeared into nothingness. Illusion!Slate bent toward the first victim while Illusion!Kat rushed from victim to victim, letting her partner know who was injured the worst.

Amazingly, the hologram people responded to the illusions. She had assumed for a long time that the machine room would be able to see though her tricks, or perhaps not even register that she was doing anything. Maybe practicing in the danger room wasn't as pointless as she had been thinking it was all this time.

That also meant that their invisibility was working.

There is a phone in the arcade, behind the wall, and a back door a few feet behind that dumpster. Go make the call while I keep an eye on what is happening out here. I'll look for anyone being suspicious.

She squinted through the corner of the brick building at the scene across the street. Speaking of suspicious, someone else was running toward the scene rather than away from it. Illusion!Kat stood from where she was leaning over to help a young girl with an injured arm and stood, holding out her hands.

“Wait there, it's dangerous,” she warned with her illusion!voice.

Slate slipped an arm around Katrina's shoulders, where he could just see the faintest trace of the girl under the illusion. She felt solid enough, and warm.

We will do better this time, he told her simply. This time. It was, perhaps, a more literal phrase than usual. In past and future, they had... not done so well as initially hoped. All they had left was the present. They would do better this time.

Slate released her from the hug, and followed her directions at a silent run. In the arcade; the back door, off of the main street and down the side alley, behind a dumpster. The promised phone awaited him inside. The building was strangely silent and strangely loud all at once; the machines still called out with their distinctive sound effects, but the people they were trying to lure in had seemingly scattered when the explosion had occurred.

911 was a number even a five year old could remember.

"There has been an explosion. Yes. I am X-Trainee Slate Swartz; I am at the scene with my teammate Katrina Dumond. We will attempt to keep civilians from approaching until the police arrive. No; we have yet to confirm mutant involvement—we were simply in the area when it occurred. Yes. Thank you."

The Danger Room's dispatcher was apparently versed in the fact that some X-Men had been deputized. Fortunately, she had not asked if he was one of them. The deputized X-Men had no doubt received special training that any responding officers would assume he had also been given. He... hoped that would not become an issue, in this simulation. If they made the team, Slate would take steps to ensure that he was not simply letting emergency workers make dubious assumptions.

Outside, the running woman's face was red as she approached the illusionary blonde.

"Dangerous? Of course it's dangerous! What are you doing here? You need to leave! All of you, anyone who can walk—now!"

Katrina couldn't figure out how the running woman fit into the puzzle. She should have been running away from the disaster, not towards it. Maybe she was also a rescuer? She seemed like maybe she understood what she was doing.

Her face, which had been red from running, turned even redder. Unnaturally red. Katrina's confusion showed on her illusionary double's face.

“We're trying to help,” Katrina explained to the shouting woman, “We're X-men, he's a healer,” she pointed at Slate. “We can't just abandon these people.”

“Oh yes you can,” the woman's voice hissed and her angry mouth split, wider and wider, and oh my those were sharp looking teeth. She didn't attack, though. Not yet.

Slate? Creepy red snake lady out here...

She tried to imagine what illusion!Slate would do.

“You're also a mutant?” Katrina was proud of how calm she made him sound. “Perhaps you could help us coordinate the rescue efforts.”

...That was not how he sounded. Those were certainly words he would have chosen, but that was not how he sounded. His voice had more... had a certain... was not so—

This was not the time to raise such a topic.

The police have been contacted, the real Slate stated, slipping back to Katrina's side. They estimate their arrival time as five minutes. Given that our suspect has no way of knowing that, however, might I advise...

Katrina obliged. Four minutes and thirty seconds ahead of schedule, the sound of sirens and squealing tires converged on the cafe. The woman's redness spread further: to her arms, her hands. Dark crimson fissures began to trace up their lengths as—

--As one of the victims started edging discretely away behind the backs of their illusionary selves, clutching her arm to her chest as she disappeared into a side street.

...I believe I will follow her, Slate said, eying the girl.

When he glanced back at the main scene, there were tentacles. An unnecessary surplus of tentacles, really.

"I suppose that is a no," his illusionary self was saying.

...Slate made no comment. He slipped off in pursuit of the injured girl, leaving Katrina in charge of his other self.

Did the woman not answer because she was going to kill and eat them now, or did she not answer because there were now tentacles where her mouth should have been? It wasn't quite clear.

Illusion!Katrina bent to encourage one last injured person as she staggered to her feet and hobbled toward safety. Real!Katrina wished her illusions could actually have helped support the poor woman as she walked. Illusion!Slate backed away, toward the barrier of police cruisers on the street, healing two people with a touch as he passed. The last two he could have helped.

The crimson tentacle beast lady was... inspecting the bodies? Doing something to them, anyway.

“Put your tentacles in the air!” A cop shouted with great authority, he may have looked like a certain Latino detective. Sounded like him, too.

The tentacle lady ignored them, continuing her search through the victims that hadn't been lucky enough to receive Illusion!Slate's ministrations.

“We'll shoot!” These were dramatic guys, these illusion cops.

“Wait,” Illusion!Katrina stepped out from behind her alley wall, waving to the faux police officers, “She hasn't done anything wrong, technically.” At least, not yet.

The crimson tentacle beast lady turned toward them. Though, it was hard to tell the difference now between her front and back. The front, if anything, was even more tentacle-y than the back. From some sort of mouth, hidden somewhere on her body, there issued a sound like liquid being forcibly sucked through a pipe. Listening carefully, it almost sounded like words.

“Wuuurrrrr issssssh sheeee?”

The girl's legs were not injured. This became abundantly clear as Slate attempted to catch up with her.

The Mansion offered a Conditioning class, did it not? Katrina was in it. Perhaps he should consider signing up as well, or asking for special sessions with Sam. The volume of his breathing seemed somewhat disproportionate to the amount of time he had spent sprinting.

The girl came to an abrupt halt at the end of the alley, just before it let out onto the next street. "Who's there?" She demanded, wheeling around. She edged another step further away; her shoulder brushed against the brick wall. A latticework of glowing red lines spread out from the point. "If you don't show yourself, I swear, I'll—I'll just bury you, is what I'll do!"

Slate... could hear his own breathing. Which meant that the girl could, as well. Ah. Apparently Katrina had not anticipated his being this out of shape, either. While he appreciated her confidence in him, it was not always convenient.

...Could you please drop my invisibility illusion? It may be counter-productive in this instance.

He had his hands sedately raised over his head when the illusion dropped. Nonetheless, the girl gasped, and the red lines pulsed more brightly.

"...I would appreciate not being buried," he stated mildly, in what he hoped was a calming tone of voice.

The girl frowned. "You're... that healer, right? Why did you... why did you follow me? It's dangerous. To be near me." She was still clutching her injured arm to her chest; there were tears forming at the corners of her eyes.

...Perhaps it would have been best if Katrina had followed her, instead. Other women... knew how to respond to such things with delicacy. He would simply have to do his best.

"I know a place that can help," he attempted, hands still in the air.

"What...?"

"With your power. We can help you get your power under control, so that these accidents—"

Her ashen face glowed with each pulse from the red lines. "You... you think I...? No! I—I wouldn't—it was him! He's dangerous! You all need to leave!"

Her words were an echo of the red woman's.

The second explosion, from back in the cafe's direction, was no such thing. The shock wave slapped Slate and the girl to the ground. His head rang.

...I believe our perpetrator is male, Katrina. ...Katrina?

Katrina dropped the invisibility illusion on Slate, gladly. She was juggling a lot, and with him off on his own where she couldn't see him through numerous layers of partially visible walls, it made it that much more complicated to keep that particular illusion going.

The real cops, or rather, the pretend danger room's cops came and mingled in with her illusions. She started dropping the ones that no one was paying attention to, too, letting them disappear behind dumpsters or cars and not reappear.

She was starting to get a bit of a headache keeping everything straight while looking through a half visible wall.

Illusion!Kat rubbed her temples, in an imitation of what Real!Kat was doing at the moment, and asked the tentacle lady from her safe distance, “Who is 'she'?”

The real cops were fanning out, shielded behind their cars, pointing guns at the crimson tentacle lady.

“Let us not do anything rash before considering all of the alternatives,” Illusion!Slate warned.

The crimson tentacle lady didn't seem to pleased by the cops crowding in closer and closer, “Go-ooooooh.”

Tentacles waved, a cop loaded what looked like a tranquilizer needle into a gun, Illusion!Kat rushed forward and put her hand out to stop him, saying, “Wait. Listen to what she is say....”

It was too little, too late. The dart flew, hitting the between two writhing tentacles just as a bright flash and a boom overtook the whole group. The cops ducked behind cars even as the cars were pushed outward by the explosion. Illusion!Slate and Illusion!Kat vanished as holographic cop cars flew through where they had previously been standing.

Real!Katrina was knocked backwards, hitting the pavement hard on her backside. The explosion, and possibly the overuse of complicated illusions, was making her ears ring. She thought someone was saying her name, but it was only half real, like it was all in her head.

Which, of course it was.

Sorry, male? I'll see what I can see.

She picked herself up and dusted herself off, then went back to peer through the wall. Without trying to maintain multiple illusions, seeing through the holograms was a little easier. She squinted at the scene, trying to pick out anything she might have missed before.

It was a mess. Also, pretty much every character rushing around, pulling out stretchers for prone crimson tentacle ladies, calling for backup on the radio, was male. She'd have a hard time picking out anyone in particular.

Any idea what he looks like?

This was not the real world. As all-encompassing as the Danger Room's illusions were to someone who could not see through them, this was not real. The shaking girl in front of him, picking herself up from the ground—not real. The beaten expression on her face as her eyes focused behind him—likewise.

Now that their illusion doubles were gone, the Danger Room was free to target them. Or rather, the only one of them it could see. They were playing against the computer, and it was not programmed to lose.

"Look at you, girl," the baritone voice said, his voice low and understanding tone. "Face all dirty. Clothes a mess. You see what you make me do?"

"Daddy, stop!" The girl sobbed, as orange lines quietly crept towards her along the alley's walls, and the pavement under their feet. "I'll come home! I promise I'll never leave you again!"

...I believe I have found him. If you could kindly rally the police on my position or otherwise orchestrate immediate backup, that would be... advisable.

"And who's this boy, baby doll?"

Slate really did prefer not being buried.