Maybe he's stubborn and maybe he's stalling...

[Bobby Drake]

(( picks up after Bob and Josh's eliminations in the Horror Zone ))

Bobby’s a little surprised by Josh’s arrival, mere moments after his own. "No way. You’re seriously telling me that Sheppard outlasted both of us? Wow… who knew?" Honestly, Bobby’s more than a little irritated at being the fourth player of fourteen eliminated… he’d expected to last longer, especially with so many relative novices involved.

> " Stupid Storm and her stupid lightning."

"Y eah, Storm’s tough… with her around it’s best not to be out in the open for too long. That was one hell of a maneuver you pulled on her in Star Wars country, though… wish I could’ve seen her face! Not too often anybody steals a march on her in one of these things."

> "Did Sue finish you off? She's seriously dangerous for a geneticist..."

" No, never even saw her – or, well, you know what I mean – after she booted me out of that room. Sorry I didn’t go back in to back you up, though… things got hectic out in the hall." He shakes his head, embarrassed by his own performance in retrospect. "Not my finest Danger Room performance… I let myself get distracted, lost sight of objectives. So, natch, the Room ran me ragged… I ended up dropping a building on my own head, if you can believe that. Guess it isn’t like riding a bicycle, after all, huh? "

He doesn’t elaborate about what had distracted him, not wanting to subject Josh to yet another round of Bobby and John: the Soap Opera. The whole incubus incident had been more than embarrassing enough in that… um… vein. Instead he shrugs it off and shifts back to his normal form, noticing for the first time that he’s covered in soot and debris and some kind of monster-slime. "Heh. I’m gonna need a shower and a change before we debrief… and I’m thinking I owe Hank a little talk about the Danger Room humiliation factor. "

As he heads out of the Danger Room and towards the lockers, he pauses and adds " Sorry about Storm…. and sorry I wasn’t more use in there. Next time’ll be better."

[Warren Worthington III]

((So, this has been pretty dead for a while, so I’m gonna wrap up the CTF part of it.
It picks up from Warren in the Horror Zone and Toni in the Fantasy Zone. ))

The trip back to the Blue Zone is easier than Warren expected, in large part because he and Storm have worked out a rhythm: he triggers and evades the traps, she protects their flag-bearing passenger. It’s still dangerous, but it’s also fairly predictable and he’s getting the hang of it, so it only takes them a few minutes to get to the Blue Gate.

"Well, here goes…" he mutters under his breath as he starts the Gate cycling. "We’ve got two of these things, and if we’re lucky the third and fourth are already in there, so… I guess that’s it, then, right? "

He’s a little startled, when he steps through the Gate, to find the “elven woods” abuzz with what seems to be a party, rather than the tense defensive formation he left behind. What the – “Hail the Warlord! We feared you would not arrive in time to celebrate the Prince’s wedding to Lady Toni!” Lady who? Oh, you have got to be kidding me… "Um… this ‘Lady Toni’… large woman, armored, travels in the company of a young man in black and – " he stops, remembering that he just left the third member of Toni’s team behind in the Horror Zone. Not that it matters; his reporting soldier is nodding enthusiastically. “Aye, indeed! The new Wizard!”

"The new w--?" The incredulous question is cut off by the sudden blurred arrival of the Roadrunner from out of the nearby woods… at least, Warren assumes it’s the roadrunner, although its appearance has varied; less cartoonish, more like a medieval monster. The elves respond smoothly, pressing back their bows as soon as the bird is spotted. "No! Hold fire! This, um, creature is, um, under safe passage!"

If it seems an unusual coincidence that the Roadrunner appears just as Storm leads the “flag-bearer” through the Gate, the sudden arrival of Toni’s “wedding party” bearing Excalibur in the same clearing is entirely unaccountable. Later,Warren will look into the CTF scenario source code and confirm that Hank’s synchronization routines were biased towards simultaneous exit/entry conditions, but for now he simply stands there in astonishment as sword, bird, coed and data-disk glow in multiple colors and the forest fades away around them.

“All four Flags have been assembled in the Blue Zone! Blue Team wins!”

Warren takes a moment to be impressed by the transition effects… it’s not just that the fantasy environment disappears, replaced by the same generic room environment they’d all started out in, but that the rest of the CTF participants seem to fade in naturally from wherever it is they were. The Danger Room doesn’t actually have a teleporter, as far as Warren knows, but the way it plays with holograms and forcefields is pretty much the next best thing.

He spots Josh in the crowd and makes his way over to join him. "Hey… good game. Hope Storm’s lightning bolt didn’t hurt too much… guess we’ll have to keep working on your evasive maneuvers, right?"

(( Anyone who wants to post after-game comments or whatever, feel free; otherwise we can declare this arc closed. Woot! ))

[Josh Dalton Worthington]

Warren materializes, and heads straight over, prompting a smile from Josh, who weaves around tired-looking X-Men to meet him.

>"Hey… good game. Hope Storm’s lightning bolt didn’t hurt too much… guess we’ll have to keep working on your evasive maneuvers, right?"

Josh makes a face. "Mostly I was just stupid and didn't expect to be interfered with... let's face it, I can catch up with you if I need to." He wraps his arms around Warren, pulling him in for a hug. "Of course, I'm completely open to more flying lessons." Josh eyes Warren's wings, remembering the agony Warren had transmitted at the start of the exercise. "I'm glad you're okay. What happened in there?"

He watches the rest of the crowd begin to slowly disperse. "Want to go take a shower? I don't think we're reviewing the recordings until later." He raises an eyebrow, and lets a few thoughts of what they could do with the intervening time float across to Warren.