4485/Red X: Bad Star Trek Plots Ensue

Red X: Bad Star Trek Plots Ensue
Date of Scene:	19 May 2018
Location:	Titans Tower
Synopsis:	Cyborg breaks the Danger Room safeties with Robin inside. Various Titans either help or eat popcorn. The next ones to face Red X are revealed.
Cast of Characters:	Robin (Wayne), Stardust, Breath, Cyborg, Raijin, 87, Raven, Wonder Girl

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Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     The Danger Room was making a bit of a racket tonight. Sounds of a boy having some fun it seems. Or at least his own brand of fun.

  The tune was to Rockin' Robin, the lyrics were clear as day. There was only one other thing in the Danger Room, Red X, taller than Damian by four inches, and the visage was extrapolated from any footage they had. Damian is going at the mysterious figure of X with hand to hand combat. Fists flew fast, and countered just as fast. It seems he's programmed this X to be his equal.

  Hoppin and a boppin and a singing his song, Rockin' Robin! The red and green and gold ninja had begun using some different fighting styles. It seems the fight is a stalemate.

Stardust has posed:
Stardust wanders into the Danger Room, hovering somewhere between annoyed to find it occcupied and intrigued to see what her team mates are doing. How dare anyone else use HER Danger Room! Of course it's not her danger room, she knows that. It's just fun to think it. She has been spending the vast majority of her Tower time in the Danger room lately, after all.

She stays out of the active zone which marks the area where people will be registered by the simulation, and walks around the walls to the control console, where she leans casually to watch the action. She doesn't interrupt, a rarity where Stardust is concerned, but she's actually pretty interested to see how the fight goes down.

Stardust takes a mental note to steal this particular bit of Damian's simulation code. The Red X simulation is a better fighter than Dan's uber-ninjas, which are the most 'skilled' opponents she currently has.

Breath has posed:
Breath wandered in earlier and saw what was going on... she just stopped at the entrance to watch. Know your enemy, and your friends, after all. She's studying relative fighting styles, tactics, everything else. When Stardust joins her, she offers a small wave, and keeps her eyes fixed on the action. She mouths a quiet 'Hey.' and tilts her head a bit to model a particularly interesting move by Robin in her head, intently.

Cyborg has posed:
     Cyborg's voice chimes in over the danger room intercom. He sounds worried. That's never a good sign. Especially considering it's that brand of worried that says 'i just really screwed up hope you're not mad' "So uh Robin, I don't mean to be interrupting the fun in there, but I might have just accidentally let lose some experimental code into the danger room system."

     There's a pause as he tries to rapid fire fix the issue already jacked into the program himself. "I mean let's be honest here man I wasn't expectin anyone to be using it so I figured it'd be fine to run some tests on my new algorithm, but uh well I mean it's probably harmless long as you don't have anything too dangerous running in there."

Raijin has posed:
Rayner zooms into the danger room, as per the usual, encased with a lightning aura and a little lightning trail that continues until he comes to a full stop. Even then, he musth ave been going pretty fast becuase it actually takes a moment for the lightning and electricity around him to die down. Though he looks rather curious as everyone else when he notices that Red X was fighting Robin!...he's hoping this is a simulation.

Oh, whew, totally a simulation.

"So...this is what Robin does in his freetime. Makes sense." He moves over by Stardust, leaning on an opposite railing. "...my money's on X." juuuust to see if he can rile Damian's feathers or distract him. What? It's still -really funny- to watch Damian get kicked in the face.

They don't get along 80 percent of the time, he gets to have a side hobby.

though his eyes shift to Cyborg as he claims that a experimental code has been placed. "...what? on a scale of one to ten, how bad could the dangerous code be?" he asks curiously, now greatly concerned.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian continues to attack Red X, a flurry of punches here, a well timed kick there. It was a little showy, but Damian's style was much more dramatic in nature to distract his opponent. It's how he can adapt for his size and weight and yet take someone down much more bigger than him. "What" Punch "did you" punch punch kick "change, Cyborg?" Backflip, back handspring, smoke pellet.

  "And put my music back on." He says, taking out a red birdarang, and leaping back into the smoke, where there seems to be a lot of clanging metal. And Damian is sent out of the cloud, sliding on his back. "Robin. Out of the shadow of the Bat? Or out of the shadow of his grandfather?" Is uttered back to him, in a familiar tone. It was Red X, and Damian's eyes go wide, he wasn't expecting that out of the simulation.

  Robin performs a kip up, extracting his katana from his back. "Shut the fuck up, I programmed you." He says, the smoke clearing and Red X standing defiant at Robin.

Stardust has posed:
"Not too bad," Stardust says out of the corner of her mouth to Rayner. "There's a limit to what the forcefields are actually capable of. Something to do with 'field compression density'. It's in the manual, but it was kind of technical. Basically, the generators can only go so far. Maybe like... high-caliber rifle to the face at point blank range? Direct hit from an RPG round? Something like that."

When the simulated Red X speaks up, Stardust glances around. "Hey. Mine did that too. When I made a Red X, he laughed at us and issued the simulation switch-off command. I'm pretty sure he thought that /we/ were the simulation and was trying to get rid of us the easy way." Of course the simulations don't actually work that way. Stardust probably programmed that in herself out of a twisted sense of humor. Right? Right?

As she talks, Stardust's hands fly across the console, entering a few commands, checking a few settings. Whatever she did produces no change to the simulation, however. At least nothing visible. At least nothing yet.

Breath has posed:
Breath uhhms.. What. The. Hell..? She clenches her fists. Chewing out Cyborg can wait. Robin is fighting a really high powered simulation, and suddenly things are potentially a lot more dangerous.

Aaand her powers are area of effect, and Robin is in a combat trance. Okay, she's going to need to get in close so she doesn't make things worse. On the bright side, Robin actually looks.. kind of *happy*.

She does a puff-enhanced jump to close, skids in on the tiles, keeps facing on Red X as best she can, and as soon as she can get X on her 12:00 and Robin at her 9, she cuts loose with a short, full force breath at X's legs! To Robin, "You skirmish, I'll disrupt." Her hands come up in her usual crouchy wrestling/boxing hybrid stance.

Raijin has posed:
"Happy to hear it. I hear ya. Maybe we can probably test it out? Have a bubble with nothing in it, blast it to test it's durability? That kind of thing. Could be a fun team bonding exercise." Rayner smiles at Letty before his eyes glance back to Damian and the simulation. Uhhh....that doesn't sound like a simulation. "..are you sure it was a simulation, Letty?" Rayner stands up now more proactively, looking at Colette.

A look is given to Cyborg and his eyes narrow just a little bit, a small sigh to his features before he looks at Breath. Oh, it looks Breath and Robin might -actually- work together! Not bad, not bad. Okay...this might not be horrible after all. Though Rayner looks like he's on alert or he's just generally nervous. at Letty's console commands not immediately working like they should, Rayner takes a deep breath.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal had had to absent himself due to an unspecified family situation, which luckily had resolved itself. Back at the tower, a quick check-up on the team told him where they were. "Training? I wonder if the squirt has come up with an even more vicious program by now."

Grabbing a power bar on the way there, Vorpal finally steps into the control room, munching.

"Hey, cats, what's shakin'?" he calls out, stepping up to the viewer, having no clue as of yet that this is not your usual training exercise.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian gripped his sword and watched Breath as she stepped in. He nods as she offers up a double team.

  The concentrated blow to X's legs sweep him down. To which X kips up, and two short swords extend from his gauntlets.

  Damian himself had shot his grapnel up, attempting to dive down with his sword and take out X from above. Red X however, was able to dodge the sword. X throws two X shuriken at Breath, retaliation to her meddling. Damian clashed with Red X, their swords clanging together in a struggle of strength. "You'll never be anything but a tool, Damian." In which Damian retorts. "And you will never be more than code." Damian slips his boot a little, where a small blade is let out, and jabs it into Red X's leg. The blade slips into the flesh, and Robin is shoved off, a now limping Red X is angrier.

Stardust has posed:
"Hey Kittycat," Stardust greets Vorpal. "The machines have come alive and are taking over the world. Or at least the danger room has come alive. Cyborg was messing with something, and Damian's Red X simulator is now trying to kill him." She relates all this information while leaning against the control console with her arms crossed. She gestures with a finger towards Breath. "Breathy over there has rushed to the rescue and is trying to intervene."

Giving a stretch and leaning back in a most relaxed fashion, Stardust turns to Rayner and grins at him. "You gonna join in the fight too, or want to watch how those two do? I'm for watching myself, this should be interesting. I guess the only question is, who gets the popcorn? Vorp, any chance you could rabbit hole us up some popcorn?"

"...Or, we could pull the plug," Stardust adds. "Just saying. Nobody ever thinks of cutting the power when a computer goes mad."

Breath has posed:
Breath sees the throwing motion and sidesteps the shuriken, but it moves her out of position and now Robin is in front of her again. No blood, but a lost opportunity. She wastes time continuing to side step a bit more, trying to regain her positional advantage.. they're close together. Too close.

At least, until Red X pushes Robin away.. As Robin's body hits the ground, that line of fire opens right up again, and she cuts loose like a dragon with a long blast at Red X's face and upper body, hoping to suck them up in the blast and launch them into the wall nearby.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner looks to Vorpal and gives him an upnod in greeting. "Yo. Welcome to the party." His eyes shift then to Colette at her question. He seems to cross his arms and relax as well. "Nah. I'veh ad my fill of Red X, thankya very much. " h chuckles then, looking at her. "I'd vote Vorpal gets the popcorn." next thing you know, Vorpal is asked to get the popcorn. Then he looks back to the fight.

"...nah, I think it's a good teamwork experience for Robin and Breath. Could training exercise." he nods approvingly with a small little smile on his face. "Though...when it gets too rough, Shut it down. if that doesn't work, well I guess we'll get to see if we have any team chemistry." a small smile.

Then his eyes are back on the fight.

Cyborg has posed:
     "The plug is pulled." Cyborg admits, not actually in the room in person instead speaking through the intercom as he takes care of programming remotely. "First thing I tried when the code broke out of the virtual machine." He's honestly sounding a bit offended someone thought for even a moment that wasn't his first reaction. He's seen enough sci-fi to know how to handle a rogue computer. "He's rerouting wireless power from a Lexcorp satellite." Cyborg adds. "Unless you want to shoot that down and try explainin it to the big man in charge and his lawyers I think we're better off trying to complete his programing by beating him in combat."

     Finally he adds an explanation. "Long story short, you know star trek right? I know I do man Picard verses Kirk is a debate I don't think will ever end." Light pause for a shake of his head on the other end. "I saw we already had the holodeck ready to go so I wanted to make it a bit more realistic. So I wrote up an algorithm to enhance the existing ai and make them a bit more lifelike." He pauses another moment. "Also tried to work on the whole actually eat things inside it, but that's still a few years out yet." There's a low rumble of his stomach. "Point is the program got loose and Bird boy here happened to be using probably the most violent program I've seen in a long time, if he was just running the puppy simulator I'd planned to test this with we wouldn't have this problem right now."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal's eyes almost glow, they become so steely. "So that asshole over there is as close as we can get at getting our hands on the jerk." He means Red X, of course. Not Damian. He reaches out into thin air and a Rabbit Hole opens up. From it, he extracts what looks like the mother of all croquet mallets. "I've got a personal matter to settle here. Ready player three."

The Cheshire cat steps through another Rabbit Hole, landing him into the simulation proper, but at a respectable distance away, so as not to get caught in the crossifre. Or crossblast.

In case Red X manages to survive the power of the blast, the Cheshire will sling his mallet over his shoulder and call out to Red X.

"Hey, asshat!"

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Good for Breath, Red X gets caught in the blast, being slammed on the stone quite hardly. Damian hops up again, ready to give a charge towards X. Though with the addition of Vorpal, Red X looks up at Vorpal, before reaching up at the Cheshire, with his blade pointed.

  Damian slid to a stop, knowing Vorpal earned this catharsis. "Do it!" He yells, egging on his friend.

Stardust has posed:
Stardust sighs slightly at Cyborg's revelation. "In that case, unpull the plug please," she calls back to him over the intercom. "I have some uh... safety protocols of my own in place, but they require power. It's probably best if your rogue AI doesn't have control of the power in that case. Has anyone ever made an AI that hasn't gone rogue? Just wondering."

Vorpal's entry into the arena of battle elicits a frown from Stardust. "He could have got us some popcorn on the way," she says to Rayner. Nevertheless, she can't help adding a louder "Go get him, Kittycat! Mallet his synthetic head in!" Then activating the intercom again, "Oh, Cy? Once you've finished reconnecting the power, could you bring up some popcorn? There's some in the Ops Room. Thanks."

Breath has posed:
Breath raises an eyebrow at the chatter from the sidelines, and vaguely makes a rude gesture in that general direction without looking. "Popcorn? Seriously? Least the cat is helping." She starts sucking in a huge breath, making stuff flutter around as she starts vacuuming the air in the room up and putting a strain on the windows, if the doors won't open to let enough air in. Owing probably to the extra reinforcement banks get on their structure, the windows hold. This time. The bank being simulated wasn't intended for that much of a draft.

Then it occurs to her that one, she's still standing behind Robin and two, she's probably going to have things flying at her if Red X isn't as clobbered as he looks, and she's vacuuming everything towards her - she automatically dives into a roll to the side and comes up guarded, measuring the geometry of Vorpal's attack in her head to make sure she pays attention to line of sight there too. "Cross 'em off, Vorp!"

Raijin has posed:
"I don't think there's ever been an AI that hasn't gone rogue in some way. Least that I know of..let's see...There's HAL from space odyssey, SKYNET from terminator, AUTO in Wall-E, Joshua in wargames. Remember? 'do you want to play a game? how about thermonuclear warfare?'." a pause. "Yes? no? okay. Anyways, artificial intelligence is usually a bad move." he crosses his arms as he turns his eyes back to the fight. "Hell yeah, popcorn. you three have a bone to pick with X over there." says the guy who fight him recently and -lost-.

Eitehr way, he watches the fight as it goes on, and he narrows his eyes. "...we really should have a team meeting about danger room simulation use..." eyes shift back to Colette. High five for tellin' Cy to do it! "So, I've been trying my hand at cracking the recent code we got. I've tried your name, Brick's name, Breath's full name, forward, torture, and the classic zzzzzzz. nothing. Were you able to crack it?"

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal grins and brings his mallet around, bringing it up to his face and giving it a quick kiss, casting the animation spell as subtly as he can. "You're going down," he calls out, starting to walk towards Red X.

He casts the mallet off to the side, and it falls to the ground with a *thud*. "I'm going to do this with my own hands!"

The Cheshire Cat now begins to run at full tilt to cover the space in between them, claws drawn out. It seems as if he has learned nothing from his previous encounter with Red X, where the other proved to be his superior in close quarter hand-to-hand. Seemingly blinded by rage and anger, the Cheshire Cat leaps up right before reaching Red X with a mighty roar-

If his plan works out the way he's intended, the Rabbit Hole will open up right before reaching Red X, depositingn right behind the twerp... at the same time that the enchanted mallet should rocket off the ground, flying towards Red X at breakneck speed, mallet head swinging.

It might work. It might also turn out to be a completely disastrous idea.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Vorpal's actions work fairly well. Red X had braced himself for the frontal assault, only to find the Cat had Rabbit Holed away, where a mallet flew towards his helmet, cracking the protector and sending X backward. Where Vorpal was waiting for him. Damian had joined the fray as well, diving in and making sure X didn't have anywhere to go other than into fists or claws.

Stardust has posed:
"Oh, the code, yeah. We should probably solve that," Stardust agrees with Rayner, eyes on the battle. "Well, if we already tried the names and the obvious seven letter options from the mess... " She interrupts herself to call out to Vorpal, "Hey Vorp! We got a new clue. Rainman had his battle with X-Face. Don't feel bad, he lost too. X-face sent us a box with a combination lock, seven letters. I wanted to melt the lock off, but I got downvoted."

Stardust is an equal opportunities interrupter. She interrupts herself too.

"Where was I?" Back to Rayner and the code. "Right. Well we have to take the clue at face value, then. 'Only those who deserve to may move forwards'" She repeats the clue, or close enough to, in a sepulchral voice. "So who does he think is deserving? Figure that out and if it's got seven letters, that's probably the answer. I'd say try 'himself' but that's not right grammatically. Anyway, he's talking about other people. So unless he's wanting us to dial in 'only you', I'd guess it'll be something like 'lackeys', 'cos I think that's how he sees us. Wants to find out if we're good little lackeys."

Stardust checks the readouts on the control console to make sure the power has been fully restored, then calls out to the Titans busy fighting, "Hey, it's always popcorn time, Breathy. But if you guys would like me to even the odds a little, just say so."

Breath has posed:
Breath hrms, since this looks more like a mugging now. She keeps an eye out in case X does one of those cinematic cast everybody aside things, or something. "I think at this point it's just a matter of watching the boys beat the stuffing out of them, but like.. it's the principle of it all, yanno?"

She wanders a bit closer, cautiously, staying guarded. "Like, I feel like I should be saying something witty about this, but y'know. Like.. I'm just not feeling it. Lame." She sticks her tongue out for a moment in dissapointment.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner nods. "Yeah, that's what would be preferred, Letty." He keeps his arms crossed as he listens to what Colette could have in terms of possible solutions...only to have her become immediately distracted. Rayner shouts at Vorpal. "Barely!" back to Letty. "..ya don't gotta preach it ya know...I know I lost." a sigh then as he hangs his head. Finally! back to code talk. "Well, worse case scenario we go with your original suggestion and just melt the lock off."

His eyes shift back to the battle, watching as Damian and Breath and Vorpal appear to be having the excellent upper hand! woohoo! An approving nod from Rayner. "Don't look like you guys need any more help than that." he grins lightly, pulling out some gum and offering a stick to Colette. "Gum? It's spearmint."

Though he quickly gets back to business as it were. "Well...maybe I'll take another crack at it in a little bit."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The Cheshire cat holds out his hand, backing away from Red X after giving him a taste of his claws. The mallet flies in an arc and lands neatly in his hand. He gives it one quick twirl-

"Winners, Stardust," he calls out as he then proceeds to hold the mallet by the head and ram the butt towards Red X's torso, trying to keep him at a distance as he prepares for his next attack, "Winners deserve to move forward." He puts all of his strength into the next shove, to try and shove X away as he says to Breath "Feel like blowing him a little diss for old time's sake?" he trust Damian to be Damian, and to choose the best moment to do something thoroughly pointy and deadly.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Red X had swiped his two swords against the handle of the croquet mallet. His mask was failing a bit, but only part of his face can be seen. X retaliated with a jump in the air, corkscrewing around and now resembling a food processor, rushing towards Vorpal and Robin. "You are NOTHING but detritus under my boot!" He screams, his voice modulation changing, malfunctioning it seems. The voice was strange. Familiar but different.

  Damian looked to Vorpal. "You're not going to like what's under that helmet. Kill it now!" Damian had jumped in the air, taking his sword and attempting to hit the simulated X in the chest. It wasn't going to be pretty, but he knows things won't be good if they see what he based this X on.

Stardust has posed:
"Nah Vorp," Stardust says, chatting to him as if he weren't busy concentrating on a life or death battle. "That occured to me too, but he wouldn't use a word like that. Not grandiose enough. Not enough drama. Red X is all about theater, and 'winners' isn't theatrical enough."

Stardust takes the offered gum from Rayner with a smile. "It's okay, Rainman. Nothing to be ashamed of." She unwraps the stick and is about to put it into her mouth, when she stops herself and gives a sigh. "You know, with a rogue AI in the system... well just in case it gets any clever ideas..." she leans towards the console and speaks to the microphone:

"Rainbow flotilla. User lockout. Rotate password."

The lights dim momentarily and a faint buzzing noise circles the room. Stardust looks at Rayner with a sheepish grin. "Best not to have the AI mess with the settings I think. I'm sure it could hack its way in with a bit of time though." She folds her arms and turns back to watch the battle. A smile spreads slowly across her lips. "Actually... Load environment: Arena 3".
  The walls of the Metropolis bank start to fade, seeming to recede from view as they fade out. The room brightens slowly until it appears to be bright daylight, and the image of a round arena wall forms in the distance, projected to appear as if they were outside the room. All around, a computer-generated crowd of spectators stamps and cheers the battle. The fight now appears to be taking place in a Roman arena.

This is apparently Stardust's idea of helping.

Breath has posed:
Breath has been watching the fight. It takes a bit of clear space to jump and rush and spin - and as soon as the X made that space, then changed direction, she was coming back with a puff of air high across the X's bow to mangle his ballistics and throw him off. Maybe drop him on the floor in a bad position. "Bad letter! Down." She blinks as the bank is replaced with an environment with possibly even less useful features to weaponize, and shoots Stardust an odd look for a moment.

Raven has posed:
    It's at this point that Raven wakes up. Or just stops whatever she's doing. If she was even doing anything. Even if she was doing something, it would probably look like she wasn't doing anything anyways, and it is an easily maintained ruse that much of what she does looks really really easy but is INCREDIBLY difficult, to be sure, even when it looks like she's doing nothing at all. (Which is very often.)

    Her arrival is heralded by the mild but still difficult to endure screech- even though the sound of it is likely drowned out by the noise of combat- and she seems to slip out of the roof, somewhere beyond the range of the image being projected. She slips through that, too, floating down with this nonchalant air of disinterest about her. One might question why someone so disinterested in everything around her was making the conscious choice to join them in the danger room, but at the same time...

    Raven is just so... Intense. Plus, inquiries are only ever responded to with snark. She's like a middle-school student. Finds exactly what you're sensitive about.

    She also has a cup of coffee, which she likely prepared on her way down, defying the laws of physics by pushing herself through the walls. Idly sipping on it, she- even though she is not too far out of the fray- watches the others engage the X-ogram. Ever the recluse, she doesn't give a greeting. She just shows up, and figures the world will acknowledge her at some point.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner raises a brow as Damian appears to almost panic and/or freak out when he sees Red X's helmet partially revaling the face underneath. Though Rayner is curious as to what Damian apparently molded the face of Red X to look like, Rayner has his full attention on Damian...wondering what it is he's attempting to hide.

Nevertheless, Colette gets his attention as gum is offered and a smile emerges when it's accepted. "ahhh...changing the password and rotating the encryption so it's harder for anyone trying to hack inside? Clever." he says approvingly to Colette, though his eyes shift back to the fight when it apparently becomes a roman arena. "....that might be a little much, Letty." Pause. "But that's freakin' awesome."

High five!

Then Raven arrives! "Hey Raven!" Rayner calls Raven over to chill with him and Letty as they watch the fight of the night!...so to speak.

Wonder Girl has posed:
    And there was something to be said about the change in scenery when it comes to the demigod-slash-honorary Amazon. Roman scenery didn't quite equal Grecian, but... she enjoyed the nod to the ancient. Both professionally, and privately. She was still kinda an archaeology geek, after all. And it was kinda buzzing through the tower - there was a fight going on?

And she had /heard/ about the new Danger Room after one of the other Titans had spent some time gushing about it, so... it seemed as good a time as any to sneak her way in there.

And yes, she was dressed for battle - with her favorite =W= shirt on, jeans, and her bracers snapped on, lasso at her hip, and stompy hiking shoes on her feet. And when Cassie steps in - letting her eyes drift around the stands in the arena, she kinda meanders over towards the gathering - Colette and Rayner, mostly.

"Hey - I heard the computer was going bad or something. Seems to look fine though?" she says, letting her eyes track to the fight, her eyes narrowing on the holo-Red X.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal steps through a Rabbit Hole, and out of the way of Red X's attack, leaving the X-ogram fee to receive blows from the others. "Why should that matter?" he calls out to Damian, "It's not like we actually know who it is." The environment change makes him pause, and he raises an eyebrow. "Cute. But I'm not going to wear a harness and a lether skirt. For the record."

He dropped the mallet when X attacked, so now he is mostly unarmed. A change in tactics was in store. He rushes towards Red X, shouting "Hey, Red X! Your mother wears polygon boots!"- he is rushing in the exact same way that he rushed him before. Red X is probably going to expect a Rabbit Hole to take Vorpal behind him...

This time, Vorpal is mixing it up. There will be a Rabbit Hole, but it will open right under Red X's feet as he maneuvers to anticipate Vorpal's attack.

The other side of the hole would drop Red X from the ceiling, upside-down. That was probably going to damage his helmet further, though, if he fell for the trap.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     X had made his attack, but Damian's sword had made contact. The young hero had made a clean stab, but he wasn't going to stop there. A loud battlecry rang out, Damian sounded downright feral as he drove that katana through Red X's chest. He was done with this, and he was going to end it.

  "You'll never...be better...than me." X says quietly to Damian, only for Robin to scowl at the limp holographic body in front of him. He draws the katana out of X's body. "End simulation. Now goddammit!!" If anyone got close to the now 'deceased' X, half of the helmet was gone, revealing Damian's face underneath. It wasn't Damian worried for the others. He didn't want to face himself, in the suit, as violent and evil as he'd programmed himself.

Stardust has posed:
From the control booth or rather the royal box, as it currently appears, Stardust and Rayner are both waving to Raven. "Hey Rae! It wasn't me. It was Cyborg. He did it, not me. Just like you predicted. It's come alive. And it wasn't my Playstation thing at all. Though this cool arena? That's imported from a game. So my ideas are good, it's Cyborg you need to kill, not me. Come on over."

"Hey Cass." Stardust waves her friend over to join them in the 'royal box'. A seat in the gods might be more suitable, but they have the better view here. "Told ya it was cool, huh? You look right at home! Yeah, Cyborg tried to add an AI program and it infected Robin's bad guy. Pretty cool, huh? Those three are having fun fighting him though, nothing to worry about."

Stardust pops the stick of gum into her mouth and chews, watching the battle continue... and end. "We should do this more often," she says to Rayner.

When Damian orders 'End simulation', for a few moments nothing happens. The arena stays. The body stays.

"Override end," Stardust whispers to the console. "End simulation."

Breath has posed:
Breath uhms.. "Robin? Do you want to talk about it? Like... Somewhere else? Maybe?" She's a bit torn. On the one hand, she feels like Robin is hurting. He needs some support. On the other hand... Well... She's maybe not as detached and settled as she could be. Obviously. Plus, basically everybody is well aware of that, so she's going to create more gossip than she wants. And she probably won't even be able to do anything worthy of the gossip... Ugh.

Raven has posed:
    Raven weighs her options for a moment. Nobody seems to be in incredible danger, and doubling down, Colette even seems to be mocking the very idea of danger in and of itself, all while Cyborg's poor, abused, unshackled violent artificial intelligence inhabits one of the Titan's current and greatest threats: Red X. Naturally, it was the mistake of the AI to inhabit such a dangerous foe, as that would mean the Titans respect it the least.

    "Right." she offers, after a moment, drifting backwards and, to a degree, through the glass protecting the AI from its ever so unstoppable audience- or the other way around, whichever works best.

    She takes a seat, too, sipping idly at coffee that was brewed for too long, is a shade or two too dark to taste anywhere near good, and yet she definitely knows that and takes it that way anyways.

    "I'll make sure to remove Cyborg from this mortal coil. He has tampered with the silence of the tower one too many times." For those uneducated, the correct number of times to break the silence of the tower is negative one.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner sees the half face of Red X being Damian, and he's silent for a long time. Eventually, he takes that deep breath and he steps away from the railing but doesn't say anything to Damian or anyone who happens to be in the ring. His eyes look to Colette as she ends the simulation. Though his smile extends to Colette as she tells him they should do this more often. "Oh definitely."

He seems to look greatly disturbed by the time Cass walks in, and he gives her a two-finger wave. "Hey there." and he again looks nervous when it becomes clear that Red X's body isn't disappearing.

"Uh huh...Raven, maybe just be a little kinder to Cyborg? I mean..punish him, sure but...leave him in his morta coil, yeah?" he says attempting to appeal to Raven's probably nonexistant 'good nature'.

Wonder Girl has posed:
"It's... amazing," Cassie says, taking a glance around as she finishes taking a glance around, setting one of her hands on her hips. A grin. In spite of a rogue AI in the system, the mood seemed to be pretty casual, so maybe a rogue AI isn't that terrible of a thing? Bringing up the toe of her boot to kinda prod at the wall of the 'royal box', Cassie nods her head firmly.

With a glance to Colette as the 'end simulation'... doesn't, her lips purse. "...that doesn't seem good," she says.

Lifting her chin to Rayner, Cassie likewise casts her gaze to 'Red X' - and seeing Damian's face there, sobers greatly. "That's a little weird too, yeah?" she glances to Raven, briefly, at her threats. Working her jaw, eyes turn back towards Rayner. "This is all a little weird, right?" she asks.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
The Cheshire cat walks slowly over to the fallen 'body,' the recovered mallet slung over his right shoulder. He stops and looks down at the face, then up to Damian.

Then down at the face again, and up again. His face is perfectly expressionless, tapping into that bit of Sphynx that all felines now and again have.

"So..." he says, gesturing towards the Grand Guignol spectacle before him, and adds "What?"

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian pulls his katana out of Red X, putting it back in its sheath on his back. He gets to his knees, and takes a moment to compose himself, looking at the dead Damian face in front of him, that green eye looking right back at him. He looks to Vorpal, and back, only managing to say, "I shouldn't have programmed him to be...a different me. But I didn't think it was going to go off program."

Stardust has posed:
Stardust's response to Cassie's question: "The day ends in a 'y', Cass." It's a fair point. It's always a little too weird. Even when nothing's happening, the inhabitants of the Tower are weird enough to reach a critical mass of weirdness anyway. "But nothing to worry about. I mean we could have just rezzed a hundred ninjas and let them fight holo-X for us, but Vorp, Robin and Breathy were so into it, it didn't seem fair."

As the Arena fades away, Stardust leans back and claps. "Good fight, you three. Some impressive teamwork. And Vorp, that was some cool rabbit hole use. We shoulda been streaming this. Is 'Vorpal, Breathmints and Robin kicking holo-X ass' seven letters?" She makes a show of counting on her fingers. "You guys have fun? I mean aside from the whole Luke Skywalker thing right there, Robin."

Breath has posed:
Breath wanders up toward Damian, heel toe, feminine swish. Biting her lips. She stops next to him. Looks down at X. Back up at Robin. She lifts a hand, then pauses, then very slowly reaches out to Robin's shoulder worriedly, making sure she is enough in his line of sight that he can see the concerned shoulder squeeze coming.

"... Oh?" She thinks about things to say, then decides she should just make space for Robin to let out whatever. She just stands, paying attention concernedly. Being present and warm and soothing.

Raven has posed:
    Seated where she is, Raven shifts her gaze from the Damian-X to Rayner. Her expression shows a mild lack of surprise- the kind of regard that almost seems like nothing fazes her. It's not entirely correct to assume that- but isn't entirely incorrect either. "I'll try. Because you asked."

    Looking to Cassie, she offers this small shrug. "Weird would be if it didn't have the face of someone we knew on it. I half expected it to to just have some weird baby's face, but that'd get a little too... Kubrick for a simulation. This is just... Tuesday. It somewhat makes sense that it wouldn't end, as well. Hopefully the next step isn't thirty Red X holograms. That'd be so -dreadful.-"

    Why does Raven always have to sound like Wednesday Addams?

Raijin has posed:
Rayner is very subtlely detecting some possible deeper problems with Damian...why did he use himself as his enemy for Red X? Who can say aside from Damian himself. Different version? Is Damian supposed to be evil or something? Rayner pats Colette on the shoulder with a smile for her. "Never change, Colette." and in the blink of an eye, he's with the trio who just fought simulation-X.

"Well...if we learn anything, looks like we probably won't get anywhere by fighting Red X one on one. Sensing the message here is teamwork." Huh...thirty red X's? Light bulb! "Maybe for an intense training session one day, Raven?" he smiles. "Oh come on, maybe that'd even be a challenge for -you-! It'll be fun!" Though the Kubrick reference earns many points. "Possibly unpopular opinion, I actually like Stanley Kubrick as a director." A light shrug then.

"Well...now that we got our frustrations out on the poor, crappily evil robot, what's next?"

Wonder Girl has posed:
Cassie takes a few moments. Pinched face, bit of a frown - staring down at the sight of the fallen Red X - and the face of the hologram. She shudders, a bit. "And the AI made it look like... you know?" says Cassie, lifting her chin to kinda gesture towards Robin, folding her arms in front of herself, and frowning, just a touch. But the simulation manages to end, and Cassie brings up her hands, joining in the applause.

Maybe these questions weren't ones she /really/ wanted an answer to.

"Eh, I could take them," says Cassie to Rayner and Raven both, her smile sparking onto her features as she flashes a wink that way, confidence brimming in her posture. "What's next?"

"You know, the usual answer is a pizza party," she says, her posture relaxing some now that the danger - if there was one, had passed.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Vorpal doesn't seem to hear Rayner, as he is pinning Angry Bird with a searing stare. When he finally speaks, it is accompanied by a raised eyebrow.

"So you decided to mold our nemesis after you... and then you went and killed it. You Bat-people have so many goddamned issues you need to start charging subscription." He tosses his mallet aside, vanishing through a Rabbit Hole to goodness-knows-where. "I'm clearly in the wrong line of business here. I clearly should have gone into psychology and sold my services in bulk to the Waynes." He smirks nd turns round, walking away from the 'body.'

Mid-stride, he answers Colette with a snap. "No streaming, no video. All of that social media bullshit was Beast Boy's crap. I want nothing to do with that." His tone is, perhaps, tighter than he intends it to be. Gar roped him into the Titans, and into dating him, by first hiring Keith to be his social media person.

Since their last converstion, the detiails thereof never fully detiled by Vorpal, the Cheshire cat has remained off most social media, and has been mostly aloof unlike his former gregarious self.

When Cassie suggest the usual pizza party, Vorpal says "I've got a final to prepare for. Just save me a couple of slices in the fridge." He starts heading towards the door, a thoughtful expression in his face. "I'll keep thinking about seven letter words, Stardust." After he stops thinking of four letter words for a bit, first.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian gives a sigh, raising his hood up as he rose to his feet. "We have a box to open." He says, looking to Vorpal before he starts stepping out of the Danger Room. "My money is on Winners, or any variation thereof." He says, looking to everyone else. He's not going to enter in a guess. He's already left an envelope on top of the box, asking to open when the box is opened.

Stardust has posed:
"What's next," Colette responds to Cassie and Rayner, "Is Vorp is gonna try 'winners' on the code thingy. It's gonna be funny to watch, with that much fur." She blinks a couple of times. "You know about the code thingy, right Cass and Rae? You weren't there. We got a box from Red X with a code thingy on it. We're not allowed to melt the lock off, for reasons I'm not entirely clear about yet." She blinks a couple more times, the calls out to Vorpal, "I did mention the electricity right? Just checking. I didn't want you wondering about the fur comment." That's /probably/ her way of warning Vorpal not to go dialing things in at random. She wouldn't actually let him zap himself unknowingly.

At least not when she wasn't there to watch.

"Okay, pizzas it is then, if nobody has a seven letter word that isn't 'winners' but that means whatever Red X considers the kind of person who's worthy. My bet is still on 'lackeys'."

Breath has posed:
Breath follows Damian, watching him worriedly. "Yeah, 'Winners' sounds like a winner so far." She sighs, because he's just looking.. beat down and exhausted now.

Wonder Girl has posed:
"...I kinda like Dinners," says Cassie, giving a wry little grin as she stays to the side. "Or I can just give it a shock with my lasso. That fixes a /lot/ of things."

Vorpal (87) has posed:
Where did Vorpal go? The group curiosity doesn't have to last long, as the Cheshire cat emerges gain via Rabbit Hole to intercept the team-mates that hven't walked away.

And he comes back with the box. "Because I am not going to sleep tonight if we don't get this damned thing open, or at lest everybody's gotten shocked. So."

He gives a quick glance at everybody, "I'll go first. And if I get shocked and I see pictures or video of it on the internet, I swear I know where each and every one of you sleeps."

"Right, then..." W-I-N-N-E-R-S...

Raijin has posed:
Rayner shrugs lightly to Cassie as he looks at her. "Eh, maybe. If you want, you can take a crack at him next one on one and see what happens?" he winks at her in a more teasing fashion. But hey, Pizza Par-taaaaaayyy. Rayner has no problem whatsoever with that.

His eyes shift to Vorpal as he apparently comes back with the puzzle and types in winners! Now...he waits.

Stardust has posed:
When Colette sees what Vorpal is typing in, she steps smartly up beside him and rests a hand on his arm. Grinning wide, she holds her other hand out flat, palm down, about four inches over Damian's head. "Think it'll make his hair stand on end?" she asks. "Hit it, Kittycat!"

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     "Because I'm the closest we have to a match to him." He responds to Vorpal. "Myself, in the League." Damian looks quite non plussed to have Colette's hand above his head, threatening to shock him. <tt> Damian makes the sound, the one where he's mildly miffed.

  The Box doesn't shock Vorpal, but instead opens up, the interior of which held a disc, and two envelopes. Addressed to Breath and Colette. Seems the two are being called out. The envelopes are filled with a single sheet of old parchment, coordinates on each paper. Colette's points to a small island in between Metropolis and New York, Breath's seems to point in an abandoned arena where the Gotham Knights used to play.

Vorpal (87) has posed:
"Tag, I'm not it!" the Chehire cat exclaims, and then yawns.

"Well, Starry and Breth, looks like it's your turn... let me know wht the disc says, alright? Now that the box is open, I do need to go and study for that final."

And with that, the cat leaves for real, this time. He does, actually, have a final he has been procrastinating about.

Breath has posed:
Breath blinks. "Wait, holy shit. I'm a contender? Iiii'm screwed." She leans a bit closer to Robin as the flash of alarm hits. Her confidence just isn't quite there yet, and Robin is nearby.

"Where is that? Do we have pictures? Floorplans?" She sighs. "I probably need to get ready to just get this over with. I'm not sure what else I can do to prepare for this yet. I'm like... open for suggestions, but yanno.. like.. I'm easy to prepare for, okay?" She sighs. "What's the volume of that place, anyways? I'm liable to take the place down.

Raijin has posed:
Rayner's arms are now crossed as apparently Vorpal did it! woohoo! "Nice! I couldn't figure that thing out for the life of me. Good job." and he means it too! He hates puzzles like that. But then Vorpal takes off! Though once he sees who the next ones to batter up are, he seems to be extremely concerned for Stardust and Breath, Raijin's eyes narrowed and..possibly even scared.

"Just...be careful okay? We need to come up with a more solid gameplan. We know he apparently has something on the inside to help him anticipate us. Let's focus on that first, yeah?" He looks around, before sighing.

"I'm gonna go investigate. Okay? Hang tight." and with a touch of his hand on Colette's shoulder, Rayner is gone in the blink of an eye. Likely checking every inch of the tower...or trying to.

Stardust has posed:
Stardust sighs theatrically when the electric zap fails to materialize, and she gives Damian's hair a scraggle to make up for the lack of shock, and winks at him. "Oh look. Two more envelopes, Damian. To go with your one on the outside of the box. I guess that's what you meant about being the closest match, because you both like envelopes so much."

"So I guess we should play the disc then." Colette wanders away, leaving the disc and envelope behind, to sit down on the edge of the console and type the coordinates into her phone. Google will tell her more about the places.

Robin (Wayne) has posed:
     Damian gives another <tt> as his crew cut is messed with. "There's plenty of information we can get from our database. I don't know much about it, the Knights had moved to the new arena a couple years before I got to Gotham."

  Damian looked to Colette, giving a nod. "I'll run the usual tests on the disc." He says, grabbing the disc and beginning to head to the forensics lab.

Breath has posed:
Breath watches Robin race off and sighs loudly, just sort of watching his exit path for a bit in obvious frustration and irritation. She sighs.

After a few seconds. "Right. Okay. Now to check that envelope. Even if we probably need to, yanno. Check it for I don't know what first. Meh, I'm sure he would have grabbed it if he thought it was worth looking at. Okay. So like.. Let's get the news." She holds out her hand.

Stardust has posed:
"He who what?" Colette asks, her eyes glued to her phone. "Oh the other envelope? On the outside? Nah he doesn't need to look at it, Breathy, it's from him." She points a finger vaguely in the direction of the box, where the envelope remains taped, rather than handing it over. Indeed, the writing on the envelope says 'Open this only after the box is opened', and is signed Robin. "It's his message to us, not Red X's message to him.

Breath has posed:
Breath closes her eyes for a second, then takes the envelope and carefully opens it so not to tear it, removing the contents and looking at them slowly. "Because yanno. Of course he knows what X is going to do next, right? I suck." She reads quietly.

Stardust has posed:
The envelope contains a piece of paper, folded over. Inside is written the word 'winners'. A line has been drawn through that word, and in another handwriting, the word 'lackeys' has been written in below it.

Colette still has her attention fixed on her phone, looking up information about the nominated locations. "Console yourself with the thought that you're really good at sucking," Colette says to Breath. "Almost as good as you are at blowing. I suggest you use both."