Issue 1 Downtime

Kara, holding a bunch of barely organized papers, knocks on the door to Will's office.

"On-tray voo!"

"Hey. I heard you're the guy to talk to about joining the X-Men?"

"That's me! You interested?"

"Absolutely!"

"Well, what is it you do?"

The energy ribbons unfurl from around her forearms. "Mostly break stuff, to be honest."

"Indiscriminately?" he said, observing the ribbons.

"Well I try to be discriminate about what they hit."

"Uh-huh," Will said nodding. "Well, why don't we head down to the Danger Room, and you show me what you can do?"

"Sure thing, chief."

"Alright," Will said, as they walked into the Danger Room.

"Computer! Target test. Random starting position. Ranged attack, ground based. Difficulty level...four."

Will gestured with his hand and a bow. "Show me your moves."

Kara shrugs off her jacket and unfurls the energy ribbons. Running into the room she lashes out at the first one to appear in her path, shattering it into pieces. Spinning around she snaps the left ribbon around, grazing one that appeared behind her and a little higher than she anticipated but hitting a third one directly. She keeps going, only missing the occasional target and usually not by much. She finishes the course with two targets appearing on each side of her, several feet away and she spreads her arms to each side, the ribbons shooting outward in a straight line, impaling both targets at the same time.

The room dings as the program ends.

Code: Select all

Program Completed
>> Speed - 3:42
>> Accuracy - 83%
>> Total Performance - B

"Hrmmmm." Will said, nodding.

"How long have you been training with your powers?"

"Couple years, with varying amounts of seriousness." she says, watching Will to gauge his reaction.

"You've definitely got a good thing going there. I'm not sure the combat roll was entirely necessary, but it was definitely a bit of flair there."

"It would have been if they were targets that fought back. Plus it looks awesome!" she grins.

"How would you do against a live target?"

"I've been in the occasional fight before. Won most of them too."

"Most?"

"Well there was the brawl I got into at a festival once and when everyone realized I was a mutant the free-for-all kinda turned into bash-the-mutie."

"Ooof," Will winced. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It happens. Some people are dumbasses."

"You seem to have escaped without...too much wear and tear."

"I hurt a couple people breaking out of it so that could have gone better I guess."

"Yeah. We're definitely anti-hurting innocent people, though you gotta do what you gotta do when defending yourself."

"They had it coming, but yeah, it wasn't pretty and I could have been more careful."

"Well, no one's perfect. Especially not at 83% of the targets," Will winked.

"Hey, not everyone has a fancy training facility like this at their disposal." she chuckles.

"Well, that's what it's here for.

You've definitely got some potential here, though. Keep your eyes on your e-mail; I'm going to have some sort of mock exercise in the next few days. To see how the new recruits work as part of a team."

"Sweet! Will do."

"Keep practicing, though. Your power is really quite unique, so there's a lot of use for it--still, gotta make sure that accuracy is up."

"Will do, Boss." she smirks.

"Oooh, impertinent. Calling me boss so soon.

Think you can handle a live target?"

"Sure."

"Alright," Will said, walking to the other side of the room, as the DR shimmered into a dojo-type setting.

"Give me your best shot."

"I'm just going to assume that you can take a hit." she grins and whips both ribbons at Will from either side.

"Have to hit me, first," Will said, his legs coiling into a spring and sending him rocketing towards the ceiling.

Seeing him dodge her she moves her arms up to make the ribbons follow after him in a wide arc.

Will's arms turned into glider-type wings, as he nimbly avoided them.

"83 percent!" he taunted, laughing.