4304/Training Day II

Training Day II
Date of Scene:	20 April 2018
Location:	Unknown
Synopsis:	Questions are raised. So are fists. Training comes in many forms.
Cast of Characters:	Stardust, Raven, Raijin, Cyborg

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Stardust has posed:
Stardust hasn't been hanging around the Tower a whole lot of late, and when she has, she's been spending most of her time in the Danger Room. Usually alone. Perhaps she's keeping out of people's way after a not entirely polite storm-out a few days back. However today, she has extended an invitation to any other Titans who'd like to join her to come and do some training.

It might be a surprise to people that Stardust been the Danger Room for a couple of hours already, as usually when she's in there, it's noisy. Sometimes filled with the sounds of simulated battle, more often lately the sounds of simulated Los Santos, which she's been working on installing into the Danger Room systems. Today it has been quiet. Those who arrive will see that she has been using Damian's favorite Mountaintop Ninja Battle scenario, which perhaps explains it. Ninjas are notoriously silent, of course, and apparently today Stardust hasn't been using it to sharpen her banter skills.

Which she totally does do, some days.

However the scene in the Danger Room is not quite what one might expect from the scenario. It's strangely peaceful, with Stardust sitting, cross-legged, on a section of broken wall, calmly drinking from a bottle of water. The scenario is still running, and fourteen holographic ninjas can be seen. In a break from the normal programming, the ninjas all have health bars floating over their heads. The health bars are all at full, but the ninjas are not attacking, which is unusual for ninjas. Instead they are lying scattered around the simulated landscape, occasionally making an effort to drag themselves towards her, but making little progress. You'd almost think they were exhausted, though it's anyone's guess what would tire out a hologram. Stardust looks pretty tired too.

Raven has posed:
    Raven spends... Almost all of her time at the tower, anymore. Not that she's depressed- though, not that anyone could or would really be able to -tell- that- she just doesn't get out much. Clinical issue, to be sure. She's in her room doing God Knows What when she receives the invitation from Stardust, and shortly afterwards, departs her room to quietly teleport her way down into the Danger Room, in order to... Well, take precautions.

    She hadn't heard anything about the storm-out- most people don't really contact Raven for much, so she's mildly out of the loop. What she was worried about was that the training would be, well, loud. As a result, before she even notices that Colette is already present, surrounded by exhausted shinobi, Raven has made her way to a wall console.

    In her normal, dreary monotone, Raven's voice rasps out a quiet command. "Volume set: Very Low."

    How sneaky!

Raijin has posed:
At the invitation to join Colette in the training room, Rayner smiled a bit at the text message he received. That said, he dressed into his more newly inspired superhero gear (minus the leather jacket, leaving him in just a black tank top, black cargo pants with the gear straps around him. combat boots on his feet and handwraps on his hands, fingers, and wrists. He seems to have cut his hair recently, going for a more short-haired look. "Heya." He says with a happy expression on his face, zooming over until he ends up sitting next to Colette.

"Sounds and looks like you've been doing some trianing without me." he sees the full health bars. "I take it your practicing your agility and your dodging?" he notes the exhausted looking Ninjas. "Not bad, I take it."

He ends up seeing Raven as she arrives, offering her a small smile. "Hey Raven."

Cyborg has posed:
     To be fair Cyborg also spends a lot of time at the tower, though he's spent a good chunk recently out trying to do the hero thing. There's a loud BOOOOOM and suddenly he's standing in the midst of the danger room covered in soot with a bit of what had been his own hand stitched (Though given his condition it might be better to say machine stitched) uniform still clinging to his body as it smoulders and flakes off the side falling to the ground. Wherever he just came from he was obviously on fire.

     He swings his sonic canon arm around from one side to the other his expression showing he's ready to fight. "Alright where are they, I'll take em d- oh..." His stance almost instantly changes and he shifts back his cannon to a hand, coughing into it. "Yeah, alright guess I must have misread the text, because this doesn't look like a giant monster attacking the city."

Stardust has posed:
"It's really not that loud Rae," Stardust says by way of greeting. For once, she doesn't add. "No traffic on mountain tops, and the ninjas tend to be quiet. It's kind of their thing." She studies Raven over her water bottle. "In the mood for a little training? Or were you just worried about the noise?" her face rises up above the bottle, grinning. "Holograms don't have emotions you can manipulate. But we could probably figure out a way to simulate that. Mood bars or something."

Stardust nods her head to Rayner, putting her bottle down on the broken wall as he comes over to join her. "Mind the ninjas, they're not dead. Yeah, something like that. I added a fatigue factor into the system. Normally they don't last long enough for it to be relevant, but I thought that would add an extra dimension to it." Sweat beads Stardust's brow; she must have been leading the holoninjas on a merry dance.

One of the ninjas drags itself by the fingers towards Rayner, struggling to raise it's sword. The blow is feeble and easily dodged.

As Cyborg arrives, Stardust points a finger at him and looks over to Rae with a raised eyebrow. "That wasn't me. He did it. He made the loud noise, not me." She lowers her finger and turns to Cyborg, smiling wryly. "Cy. If a giant monster was really attacking the city, what would it be doing in the danger room? Still, at least we know how to get your attention. It seems we still have yet to discover how to get you to turn up somewhere fully dressed though. Never mind, we'll work on that. So, who wants to do a bit of training? Apparently there's a maniac who wants to fight us. Probably ought to be ready for that."

Raven has posed:
    Raven turns at the noise from Rayner, Colette and Cyborg. Her frown is evident, but it's just the RBF rearing its head again. At least she wears it well. "Oh." she states, looking over the exhausted ninjas and the somewhat less exhausted Stardust. "Wasn't there a memo about what sort of simulations were proper?" Best at jokes, kids.

    Sheathing her hands in her pockets like normal, she speaks to Rayner, since he roused her attention first. She offers him an acknowledging nod, but before she can speak, Cyborg explodes his way into the room. "That was loud. We should all strive to be much less loud." It does not sound as if she is making suggestions. Her attention moves back to Colette. "I don't really do... Training with the holograms. They are scenarios that ignore all of my strengths and focus only on the parts in which I am deficient in comparison to other members of the team, making them particularly ineffective."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner gives a friendly little wave to Cyborg. "Heya Cy!" he says with a happy little ewave, though he looks to Colette and gives her a playful little nudge. "Well, yeah, I notice that one." he teases her softly. "Musth ave led them on quite the chase. Though you seemed to have tired out yourself too." A blade is swung at him and he just tilts his head slightly out of the way, the blade doesn't even touch his hair.

He does laugh a little bit as Colette seems to pin the danger room updates to Cyborg, and he smiles as training is officially offered. "Sure, I'm game. What do you have in mind?" he asks then, resting his hands on his knees as he leaned forward a bit.

"Though Cy...one of these days, a giant monster would be pretty sweet to have in this game. Boss fight?"

Cyborg has posed:
     "I don't know how you guys operate, I'm still the new guy on this team." Cyborg comments while dusting off the last flecks of his burnt formerly awesome suit. "For all I know you trapped the thing in the danger room, used some of Raven's freaky shadowpowers to transport it here and needed me to lay the hurt on it." Alright so he was probably the only person who thought the suit was awesome but then again no one will ever be able to see what it looked like so he can just keep the illusion going it was the best costume ever. "And come on man, not like I got anything to show," He motions down to himself. "Whole body's basically just a suit of power armor anyway, so if you didn't know better you probably couldn't even tell I was naked."

     He shifts and morphs his hand into a small device and begins hovering it over himself. In a few moments his entire body is clean like he'd just walked out of the shower, though it does take running the device from head to toe which takes a short while. "Not like I got my junk swinging in the breeze or anything...." He pauses a moment. "I just realized, I don't even know if I have junk..." He shakes his head. "Sorry, T-M-I, I know, but it's where my brain goes."

Stardust has posed:
"I'm still moving," Stardust replies to Rayner. "They aren't. Simulation off!" The ninjas and mountain landscape disappear at her words, and she hops to her feet as the wall fades away. A first test for Rayner - he's certainly fast enough, but is he paying attention, or will he fall on his butt? She steps over to the control console, and starts fiddling with the controls. "There's a limit on giant monsters. Simulation can't really do anything bigger than the room. We've got medium sized monsters though, if you want to try fighting some of those. Maybe Rae can sarcasm them to death."

Stardust looks up from the console, head tilted sideways, to look Raven. "So you change to scenarios. That's what I've been doing." She holds the gaze for a moment before turning back to the console. "I realized the current scenarios aren't much use for me either. For similar reasons. You're right, there's not much point training too hard in the things you're never going to be brilliant at. But this thing is pretty flexible. Just have to work out something that will help you hone your skills."

"Cy, this room is stuffed with state of the art holoprojectors," Stardust points out. "I mean yeah, force fields too, but it would be a fairly expensive place to blam a monster to. Can we not wreck the room? Especially when Raven's bound to blame me. I mean if Rae teleports a monster that needs blasting, it would probably be better to teleport it into the sun." She turns questioningly to Raven. "Can you do that Rae? Simulation on."

At the spoken command, the lights in the room start to dim, casting the edges where people are standing into gloom, and the center of the room into deep shadow. For a moment nothing moves, but then a figure steps forwards into the gloom, barely more than a silhouette. In the darkness, all that can be seen clearly are glowing white eyes, and a red X. The figure comes to a halt, arms folded across his chest. "So," Stardust asks. "What do we know about this guy? Raven, you called it generic taunts. But he said you once almost found him out. Any idea what he meant by that?"

Raven has posed:
    Raven seems to be giving Cyborg and Rayner space- though whether it's because they haven't particularly acknowledged her yet beyond greetings or because one of them talked about robotic dongers, or for some other unknown reason is, of course, unknown.

    Instead, she speaks mostly to Colette, who is the person who addresses her the most. "The simulations still cannot simulate minds for me to interact with. Doing so would be... Dangerous, and as a result, I have no purpose inside them other than to provide support and to hit things with my soul-self, which is not what it is designed to do, despite being very, very good at it." She's not wrong- she can project a bird from herself that travels somewhere near forty times the speed of sound when she needs to. Certainly not pleasant to have rammed straight into one's jock.

    "I cannot teleport things into the sun. It's a little far away. I'd have to travel." Colette might have been joking, but this is Raven's brand of sarcasm. "I also don't do well in the sun."

    Her attention turns to the hologram of Red X as it appears. Her eyes narrow slightly. "I have a few, but nothing solid enough to mention. Suffice it to say, it is a harmless notion."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner seems to relax a second, before he realizes that hte wall was part of the simulation! He falls and he lands right on his feet after a short little front flip. "Woah! little fast..." he sighs a moment then though his smile is quite apparent for her. "Not bad, not bad....though cooommmee oonnn..." he looks then to Cyborg. "Yo Cy! could you make a few upgrades to the danger rom when you have time?"

Aaaaaaand Cyborg is talking about his junk and all that. "...TMI my dude. TMI." Yep, that image is in his brain now.

Either way, he cracks his neck a little bit, his eyes falling on Raven now as she speaks in response to Colette...while also acknowledging her words. "Oh? you can't do that? I thought magic was supposed to be insanely powerful and all that fun jazz." says Rayner, he who knows extremely little about magic itself.

Then Red X appears! "He likes to play tricks and apparently act like he's the smartest guy in the room at any given moment."

Cyborg has posed:
"You know Rae, I'm pretty sure none of us would do well in the sun, except maybe star, don't know what that freaky alien chick can do." He shakes his head a bit. There's a moment where he's about to reach out to the control panel to help with a bit of rapid fire reprogramming on his own but he only manages to extend his fingers before the entire control panel vanishes into the ether from whence it came. That in mind his hand returns back to normal. He tries to play it off like he just needed to scratch his leg and just so happened to make a rather awkward reach in order to make it happen. "Point is: The sun is a mass of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is built into helium at a temperature of millions of degrees." He pauses for a moment. "The Sun is hot, the sun is not a place where we could live, but here on earth there'd be no life without the light it gives." Already rolling out his shoulders. "We need it's light, we need it's heat, we need it's energy." Pausing for just a moment to pop that shoulder right back into place "Without the sun, without a doubt there'd be no you and me"

     Finally he looks over towards Red X, shrugging his shoulders at the mention of TMI. "Hey man, I know, but you gotta understand, it's a big deal to me. Would be to you too if you were in the same place." He pauses a moment. "But hey, I getcha man, gonna file that topic under the same category of: Do not Discuss I shove politics and religion." He kneels down to look him over. "Know he's a lot shorter then I figured from the way you guys were talking." He pauses for a moment circling round the figure. "Kind of looks like the sort of guy you'd find at comic-con trying to dress up like his favorite oc, without you know having to build the whole suit in his mothers basement like I usually wound up doing."

Stardust has posed:
"Can you shape your soul-self however you like, Rae?" Stardust asks, staring at the holographic figure of Red X, her arms folded in a stance that's a mirror of his. "I mean there's got to be a lot you can do with it other than hitting things. How about making a ramp, or a safety net? Constructing a bridge people can walk over? A cage? Ten cages simultaneously? Around moving targets?" She doesn't wait for a response; she seems to be throwing ideas out rather than starting a discussion. "Any time you want to share those thoughts, Rae. We have little enough to go on. You've been with the Titans longer than any of us. Something happen before I showed up that might be relevant?"

Stardust watches Cyborg circling the holographic figure, who's head turns to follow his movement. Rather eerily, the neck turns much too far, owl-like. "The scale's a guess, Cy. Just going on some video footage. I wonder if I could survive on the sun. At least you could be sure of a good tan. Hmm. Maybe not. I mean it's the same stuff that gives a tan that would kill you, right? If I can't tan any more, I'm going to be kind of annoyed to be honest. Think you could take him, Cy?"

Rayner's comment elicits a wry look from under an arched eyebrow from Stardust. "Any reason to assume he isn't the smartest guy in the room? I heard you had another opinion about him too, Rainy. Something about gadgets? Robin mentioned that. You think that makes him an easy opponent? Not having powers, like you?"

Raven has posed:
    There is a moment of silence, before Raven proves her age. She's an adult, and adults get to say things. All she can say to Stardust is a single statement in response to all of those questions. "Do I look like a fucking Lantern?"

    There is a pause, then, as she sincerely regards Colette for a moment. Then, her attention shifts back to the hologram, though she speaks to Cyborg first. "I am certain nobody here would do well in the sun, except for Stardust, whose blonde hair would enable her to ascend to the Cali-girl singularity. If only we all could be so grossly incandescent. As for any leads I might have, I... Have suspicions to his identity. They are useless without evidence, and I won't be leading anyone on any wild goose chases. I can say that this is not the result of some... Old grudge."

    With that, though, she starts to step back. "I need to... Do some research. And some searching. I will be in my room if you need me. I would ask that everyone not need me." She sure has been... In her room for the past few weeks, give or take.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner tilts his head at Raven as she appears to get a little hostile, causing him to lift his hands up defensively. Then she starts to explain. Okay, hands go down. His eyes fall upon Raven as she apparently turns heel to leave the Danger room, causing Rayner to sigh then for a brief moment. However...it's when Colette starts to question his thinking about people who use gadgets. "I'm thinking relatively. We have a magic user, a super-cyborg, an alien, a guy who can use electricity, a ninja, and you. I'm not saying he'd be easy pickings in a large fight with all of us against him."

A deep breath.

"My thinking is that we can overwhelm him if we blitz him. Unless he's got some hella good gadgets." he crosses his arms. "Powers don't define how effective you are in a fight, but they sure as hell help against other metas." He shrugs a moment then, apprently in deep thought.

Cyborg has posed:
"Ok so in actuality The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma, but that song isn't NEARLY as catchy as the original" He shrugs his shoulders. "Even though it gets the facts straight, and is still a good song, just not up there with the original, or their other songs like Istanbul, or Particle Man...." Cyborg's clearly lost himself in his mind for a short moment before he looks back up.

     "Don't know, to be honest I aint about to get cocky and say just because he looks human I can take him down in a heartbeat," He leans back stretching even though his 'muscles' don't actually need it. To be fair most of what he does is actually force of habit, like moving his chest up and down with his breathing, eating food, or sleeping.

     "Can't judge a book by its cover and all that, even superman's gotta know you don't go walking into battle with an Ant holding the attitude you're gonna crush it." Finally moving back to a proper stance. "Never know when that ant might have a plasma canon capable of rending your flesh from bone..." He pauses a second. "Ok, so maybe the analogy falls apart a bit but you get the idea."

     "Alright so that clears things up a bit" He starts looking over towards the rest of the group. "Now we know it's not one of Rae's goth friends from high-school come back to exact revenge on all her friends for wearing the same robes to the big dance." Trying his hand at a bit of sarcasm, but he does diffuse it a bit with a smirk. "Still, I'm going to see about jacking into cities street cam network, pay a pit stop to the military satellites and by lunch we should know who he is. Too many cameras to hide your identity forever these days."

     "Was easy enough to break into the pentagon before I got these upgrades." Not really tooting his own horn more stating a fact. "Now I've got some actual firepower in my ring, should be a cakewalk to at the very least find out if he's got the superpower of removing himself from government surveillance." He pauses for a moment having spoken ALL of this dialogue in a matter of seconds. "If he does have that power? I think we got bigger problems on our hands." He shrugs his shoulders. "It comes down to it I just turn my sonic cannon full blast and atomize him. One shot and I don't care how good his armor is he's gone." He pauses just a second. "No, I'm not actually going to kill him, not at that stage yet."

Stardust has posed:
"I'm sure you'd look good in green," Stardust replies to Raven in an annoying level voice. "I have no idea what you can do, that's why I asked. Do you?" A faint smile crosses her lips. "I'm sure nobody would dare interrupt you in your lair, Rae Rae. But don't worry, I'm sure we can find wild geese to chase all on our own." She watches Rae's departure with a hint of satisfaction on her face, as if some part of the puzzle had been solved.

"Nice theory, Rainy." Stardust snaps her fingers in Rayner's direction, turning her attention back to those still in the room. "You forgot one ninja though. We have two ninjas. And a part time chaos cat. And a... actually I'm not entirely sure what Brick is. And a walking hurricane. But seeing as we have no idea who or where he is, how are we going to blitz him? So far everything is on his terms. That means we can assume he'll try going one-on-one. So you better be good against gadgets." She turns her gaze to Cyborg, grinning a little. "Cy, that sonic cannon of yours, would you classify that as just a gadget? The hacking into the camera system sounds like a good idea. Start at One World Plaza, we know he's actually been there. But maybe before you do that, you could dial that sonic cannon down a few notches, and help Rainy test his theories out. There was some talk of training, after all."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner seems to look at Stardust then for a moment. "Speaking of two ninjas, has anyone seen Damian around lately? I've actually been meaning to touch base to see what strategies he would suggest with taking this guy down. That way we don't just go in guns blazing." he shrugs then a moment. Though everything Colette says is true, and he sighs a moment. "Perhaps I'm just jumping to conclusions." Though his eyes turn to Cyborg as apparently they might be working together.

"Yeah....that's thei ntention. Well...guess Cy and I can go check it out. Though...try not to blow anything up or disintegrate peple with that thing, yeah?" Though Cyborg is still talking about the sun and Rayner blinks at him a moment. When he comes back to earth, he smiles at him. "Wait...you broke into the Pentagon?" he asks him curiously. Uncertain if that's exactly what someone wants to brag about.. "Well...let's check it out and see what we can find.'

He looks to Colette then. "Maybe you can chat with Raven and see what she comes up with? Sounds like she has some new methods to try."

Cyborg has posed:
"Didn't everybody when they were a kid?" Cyborg asks it as if it's the most honest and innocuous question, like it hadn't really occurred to him that wasn't normal behavior. "NASA, the Pentagon, Facebook, anywhere people said you couldn't crack, I'd do my best to try just you know." He pauses a moment as if the statement will fill itself in but when it clearly doesn't he continues. "Prove it could be done. Used to build free programs for the deep web when I wasn't practicing football or being doped up with drugs by the parents." He's rather calm and collected about it still keeping an eye on that hologram.

     "Shouldn't have any problem toning it down a bit, like I said, I'm not exactly at the point in my life where atomizing criminals is on the agenda." He pauses. "Maybe once I hit thirty I'll give it a shot as part of a mid-life crisis you know go the whole Punisher route a few years see how it suits me."

Stardust has posed:
"Yeah, Damian dropped in earlier," Stardust replies to Rayner. "He makes nice tea. I forgot to ask him what variety it was. Tieguanyin, I think. But I'm no expert. Try some, if you get the chance." It's not exactly a commentry on Damian's strategizing, but who knows. Maybe she thinks a nice cup of tea will calm Red X down. "I think I'll pass on the Raven thing though, you heard her. Doesn't want to be interrupted. I'm sure she'll let us know what she comes up with eventually.

"Yeah, best not to vaporize people if you can avoid it Cy," Stardust agrees. "Particularly not teammates when you're sparring with them. Even when you hit thirty. Come to think of it, you might have to wait a long time for a mid-life crisis. Who knows how long Cyborgs last." She tilts her head to the side, looking thoughtful. "Actually you'll probably end up having to upgrade to the latest model all the time to stay compatible. Like cell phones. So you may live forever. I don't think immortals are allowed mid-life crises. It would be a paradox."

  In the darkness at the middle of the room, the hologram of Red X starts to laugh, a mocking laugh that echoes through the room. It steps back into the shadows, and as it does so, his voice can be heard, coming from everywhere and nowhere. "Simulation off." The image fades and the lights come slowly back up, revealing the space he had been in, empty. Stardust sucks her teeth. "Tch. I think he thought WE were the simulation. How about that. Well, I'm going to go make loud noises outside Rae's room. I'll see you guys when I find a way to escape from whichever hell dimension she sends me to. I suggest you two take advantage of the space being cleared to spar a bit. Find out if powers or gadgets are better. You two are pretty much polar opposites, I'm sure you can both teach each other a lot." Her lips curl up into a sudden beaming smile, then she hops over to the doorway where her backpack has been stashed, slings it over her shoulder and gives them both a cheery wave and a "Bye!" before stepping out through the door.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner looks at Colette then as she tells him about Damian, which he nods softly. "Strangely enough, I hear that a great deal...I guess I'll have to try out Damian's cooking." he shrugs then a moment before he ends up tilting his head at Colette as she seems to leave Rayner and Cyborg to spar.

"Right....text you later Colette." he says then before his eyes are on Cyborg. "Well, guess that just leaves you and me." lightning already coursing around his body as he gets ready to spar with Cyborg. "Let's have fun! don't go all out." he advises

Cyborg has posed:
Cyborg cracks his neck and lets out a bit of a chuckle. "Oh don't worry," as tentacles spring fourth from his back each one holding a different weapon. "I'll hold back." A light wink made with his good eye before he rushes suddenly forward beginning the battle. The clash of the Titans begins almost instantly and will carry on for some time.

     Only the two involved will truly ever know how it ended. Well them and anyone who actually viewed the recordings of their fight, but needless to say afterwords Cyborg needed to spend a few days repairing the danger room. Lot of damage needed fixing even with both fighters holding back. This was the danger of sparring matches.