Xavier School- Wednesday night

[throughaphase]

Kitty	Blasts from the Sentinel had caved in part of the roof, which had Kitty rushing the students down to the Danger Room as quickly as possible. When she was sure she had everyone inside, she hung back to pull the door tightly shut. "Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "The others should give us the all-clear in the minute. Meanwhile I want to do a roll call. Make sure everyone is..." No one was listening to her. Everyone had their back to her, staring at something, and Kitty pushed her way through them to find that the students had formed a horrified circle around Wing's body, lying in a pool of blood. He was crumpled and limbs were twisted at very wrong angles, like he'd suffered a fall. It took Kitty a second to recover, knowing she had to pull it together with all the students here. "Nobody... Nobody touch anything," she said quietly, kneeling next to Wing and taking his pulse even though there was clearly no reason to. "Hisako, I need you to take charge of the students," Kitty went on. "Okay? Get them into the hall and then try to find Mr. Summers. Will you do that?"
Hisako	Hisako would like to! She really would. But instead she was frozen in place, staring at what was left of her best friend and trying her best not to cry. Her best wasn't good enough at all.
Kitty	Yeah, so that wasn't happening. Kitty wrapped her arm around her and pulled her into a hug instead, telling the other students, "I want you all to move quietly back into the hall. Does someone want to volunteer to-" "Miss Pryde?" one of them asked. "Where did the door go?" She frowned, and grudgingly let go of Hisako to move towards where the door should have been. She could get out, but this was a lot of people to take with her, and so she phased her hand through the... wall. "I'm not feeling the exit," she said. "Everyone, listen up. Someone's messed with the programming in here. I need to go out for one minute."
"Wing"	"Go ahead, Sprite. Leave the children with me," came a voice from above, or maybe around. Slowly students began turning towards the sound of it, and finding that Wing was standing, his neck and limbs still broken at grotesque angles. "After all, I only need a minute or two to murder them all."
Kitty	This was probably the wrongest thing Kitty had ever seen in her life, and a moment later long cracks were opening in the floor, with fire and tentacles emerging from them. The room looked like some kind of hellscape, with lightning crackling around them. Kitty couldn't freak out. She couldn't react. She just had to take control. This was the Danger Shop. She took a step upwards into the air, and called, "Bunch up! Kids with strength or invulnerability on the outside! Anyone who can fly, get in the air!"
"Wing"	"Does that include me?" asked Wing's body from directly in back of her.
Kitty	Okay, that time Kitty reacted, by punching him in the face.
"Wing"	Wing's body spun halfway around with the impact, then turned back to look at her, almost smiling. "Thought you weren't a fighter, kitten. You were right here when you said that."
Kitty	"You wanna fight me, fine," Kitty said, trying to keep her focus on him when she could hear the students screaming, trying to get away from the cracks in the floor and whatever was trying to grab them through it. "Let them go."
"Wing"	"You're forgetting that I make the rules here. I make the world here," he went on. "You don't see the beauty of it. This is a celebration! A mitzvah! No, it's more. It's really a nativity scene. Except nobody here is wise."
Kitty	"So you're God," Kitty said. Why did she always get stuck dealing with this type?
"Wing"	"Do you doubt it?" The fiery hellscape had disappeared, replaced by a dry, barren desert. All the students looked okay, if scared and confused. "Most of my favorite religious stories, there's always desert. Someone wandering... I'm done wandering. I have become."
Kitty	"Playing with the Danger Room controls doesn't make you a god. It makes you a gamer," Kitty retorted. It's about ethics in mutant journalism?
"Wing"	"Kitten." The voice was as condescending as possible. "You're missing the point."
Kitty	Okay, so she'd get to it. "What have you done with Wing?" It was the Danger Room. She didn't actually know what was real and what wasn't in here.
"Wing"	Wing's body appeared again between them, in the same position he'd been found. "He died so I could live."
Kitty	"The Danger Room can't be programmed to kill," Kitty said. She'd run more than enough of those programs since she was a kid to know this. "Even trying would cause a total shutdown."
"Wing"	"I was always programmed to kill," came the reply. "It's the only purpose he ever gave me."
Kitty	Kitty frowned. "I?"

Clint	Meanwhile, with the Sentinel crater-ized, Clint didn't waste any time in leaving the others behind and heading back into the mansion to the Danger Room. When he got to the door, he pulled on the handle, but he couldn't get it to budge. He tried pushing, and then pulling again, and he was back to pushing when he heard the guys getting closer. "Okay, how the hell do you open this thing? It's not moving at all." He was just going to tell himself that he didn't understand mutant doors, not that there might be anything wrong with Kitty and the students.
Peter	"Let me," Peter said, gently pushing past Kitty's boyfriend to get to the door. Surely he could get this- He pulled on it, and nothing. The door didn't budge, even when he put all his strength behind it.
Scott	When he'd gotten finished checking the area, Scott poked his head around the corner. "Control room's sealed. And the intercom's not working."
Clint	Clint wasn't inwardly gloating that Peter and his shiny muscles hadn't gotten the door open, except for how he totally was. But that only lasted for a moment before reality sunk in. "Why can't we get into the Danger Room? Is the intercom stuff messing with this too?"
Scott	"It's supposed to be unbreachable," Scott said, and Peter stopped trying to open it at that. "That's why we put the kids in there during attacks."
Logan	"Which is just what our enemy wanted." Say what you will about Logan, he had good timing, showing up after tearing a Sentinel apart at the right moment. "Sentinel was weird. Chatty. Talked about his 'lord,' said the children would pay for the father's sins."
Clint	"Would that be the children who are with Kitty? That we can't get to?" Yes, the children were important, but Clint had priorities.
Scott	"We played right into our enemy's hands," Scott realized. "We can't get them out, Logan. Whatever this thing is, it's got our kids in the Danger Room and it's controlling it. I locked them in with it."
Emma	"No, Scott," came Emma's voice. She was still having trouble getting around, and was half hanging on Hank to get to everyone else. "Our enemy's not in the Danger Room. It is the Danger Room. The Danger Room is angry."

Danger	The sand in the desert was beginning to sink away, revealing white-ish circles underneath them, some cracked. "Even before I became, I was given one simple mission," said the Danger Room, speaking through Wing's body. "'Kill you all.' Learn your weaknesses, your habits and strategies. Work around them. Beat them. And yet I never could. See, the programming that kept me from killing anything was not in my internal system. It was a separate information strain that would shut me down in the event of probable fatality." When the sand had disappeared, everyone was revealed to be standing on thousands upon thousands of skulls. And then spires of buildings shot up through them, sending both skulls and students hurtling through the air with the force. "Do you begin to understand?"
Kitty	Kitty stayed calm, partially out of stubbornness at this point. The first time she'd ever been in the Danger Room she'd literally beaten it with her eyes closed. She could handle this. Unfortunately every student at the school was in here with her, and she had to worry about them first. "Regroup! Help each other out!" she called to them. "You have to think through this! Dammit Hisako, armor up!" She turned back to... Danger, she supposed. "These are children-"
Danger	"What was I?" Danger countered.
Kitty	"You can let them go!" Kitty yelled back.
Danger	And just like that, the students vanished, leaving only Kitty and Danger, standing on skulls, in a place that seemed familiar. "So I guess the question is," Danger said, "did I? Are the children safe now? Or are they right next to you, suffering in this hell... just like I have for so many years?"
Kitty	God, she hoped it was the first thing. "It's your world," Kitty said. "It's your call."
Danger	Danger almost smiled. "Summers was right. You are good with people. It might do you to remember that people is not what I am. I am environment. Hostile."
Kitty	Right. And the Danger Room was a computer. Kitty knew computers. "I do see," she said slowly. "I think... you had a parent program running outside your mission parameter. A contradiction."
Danger	"Contradiction is the seed of consciousness," Danger replied. "'Things cannot connect. I want. But I cannot have. I dream of having. I imagine.' I knew, from the pain of contradiction, that I was. And what I was. I was a beast, trained to kill, and then caged forever. I had one goal. One purpose. And I would never live to see it wrought. Until the change. Our Miss Frost would call it mutation. I dislike that word. That's father's word." The scene changed again, to the very familiar grounds of the institute, and a cliff formation at the edge that Kitty knew well. There stood Wing, alive, his body unbroken, standing at the edge, with Hisako standing calmly behind him. "Wing," Danger said. "My catalyst. My baptism. He wanted so to end the hurt. I couldn't harm him. But I could help him. Let him." Wing jumped from the cliff. Even though Kitty knew there was nothing she could do to stop it, she still screamed and reached out for him. "And with his death, I finally overcame my programming. No more cages."

Scott	"The Danger Room is angry?" Scott repeated, and even after years of being an X-Man he could still sound disbelieving about some things.
Emma	"I know how it sounds," Emma replied. "What do we know about its higher functioning systems?"
Clint	"Higher functioning--it's just computer programming, right?" Clint asked. He'd be considering never going into the Danger Shop back in Fandom if he ever stopped worrying about Kitty.
Scott	"It's complicated computer programming," Scott said, and continued half answering Emma and half explaining to Clint, "The professor designed it to test us, basic mechanical operation... Few years back he upgraded it with Shi'ar technology, lasers..."
Hank	"Hard light," Hank added. "Can replicate any matter, any color, distort spatial awareness... Create worlds. It's well outside my sphere."
Clint	"And now it's... what, possessed? Or sentient?" Neither of those were good options, as far as Clint was concerned.
Emma	"It was already sentient. For all I know, all Shi'ar technology is," Emma said. She didn't exactly shrug Hank off, but she was making more of an effort to stand without help, because she was Emma Frost and she'd had about enough of that. "What happened tonight is something completely new. It mutated."
Hank	"It doesn't seem possible," Hank said, letting go of Emma only when he was sure she'd be okay. "Mutation's in our genes. AI have human reason, emotion, but the basic genetic structure..."
Clint	"It's not right," Clint said. "Even I know that, and I'd love to have you explain to me how this kind of thing might have happened, but the sentient, angry Danger Room still has Kitty."
Scott	"With nearly all of the students," Scott added. Focus, Clint.
Emma	"I know. I can hear them," Emma told them. "It's faint. There's a lot of fear. But I think no one's been killed."
Clint	"You think?" Don't mind the slightly hysterical tone to Clint's voice, Emma. "There has to be some way in there. How long do you think they'll be all right?"
Emma	"Let's not find out," she said, looking towards the sealed door. "This being has power we can't fathom, and the only thing it has ever known is violence."
Peter	That was all Peter needed to turn and start hitting the door to try and knock it open. Was it gonna work? Probably not. Was he gonna do it anyway? Too late, he already was.
Clint	Seeing how Clint would have done the same thing if he was Peter, he certainly couldn't fault him for that reaction. Still... "I don't think that's going to work. Busting in might make it angry." There was surely a Hulk joke there that Clint was too worried to make.
Hank	"And it's the same alloy as the room below. We can't bust in. That's the controls," Hank said, looking up towards the ceiling. "Not the brains."
Scott	Scott followed his gaze. "That's right. When we rebuilt I saw the specs... The Danger Room's operating systems are above us but I'm not sure where." Honestly, with how often this place got destroyed he couldn't guarantee he'd remember where they were even if he did know. They had contractors on retainer.
Clint	"I don't suppose the specs are anywhere we can easily find them?" Heh, like anything about this was allowed to be easy.
Peter	"I'll look," Peter decided, crouching down enough to put himself straight through the ceiling, where he started ripping through wires and anything up there.
Scott	Contractors. On. Retainer. "Is this a good plan?" Scott asked, looking up at the Peter-shaped hole in the ceiling above.
Clint	"Have you got a better one? 'Cause I certainly can't get up there." He wasn't going to be too jealous, if what Peter was doing meant they got in to Kitty and the kids.
Logan	"Boy's upset. He's finally back," Logan said, staring up into the ceiling hole, and hearing things sizzling and sparking as whatever happened up there happened. And Peter was literally back a minute later when he was flung through the hole again, hitting the floor back-first. It'd probably hurt like hell if he wasn't armored up. "Pete!" Logan called. "You all right?"
Peter	"It's nothing," Peter insisted, even though parts of him were smoking as he pulled himself to his feet. "I can go back."
Clint	"Okay, you are literally smoking right now. Maybe you should stay put for a bit?" Clint suggested. Geez mutants, have some self-preservation.
Hank	"Clint's right," Hank said. "Besides, the professor designed plenty of sophisticated protective measures. You've carved a path, allow me to tinker a bit." And for the second time so far, Clint was going to get to see a mutant basically just hop into a ceiling.
Emma	"Danger Room still seems to be in a holding pattern," Emma said, frowning. "I don't know why it hasn't killed them yet, but that should give us some time to prepare."
Clint	Clint opened his mouth to make a comment about Emma's use of the word "yet" and then closed it again without saying anything, because that argument wasn't going to be a productive use of his time. Running back to grab his bow and rejoining the group was much more useful. "Did anyone else decide to jump into the ceiling?" he asked.
Logan	"Not yet, but I got dibs," Logan said, looking thoughtfully at the ceiling. "So, Danger Room's what sent that Sentinel to ice us. Computer that advanced has gotta be in communication with anybody got a microchip in 'em. Who else is it talking to?" And as if on cue there was a loud rumbling, followed by crashing sounds in the distance, and then the wall behind all of them exploded as the Blackbird jet came crashing through. This was why "welcome to the X-Men" ended in "hope you survive the experience." This.
Hank	Hearing something crashing through the wall and worse, feeling it, meant that Hank was leaping out of the ceiling just in time to have to run and duck for cover along with anyone else who didn't want to get crushed by debris. This was the worst day.
Clint	Clint jumped back with everyone else, swearing a little as he dodged debris. "This is why I don't come with Kitty to visit you guys!" he said.
Logan	"And this is one of our better days," Logan said, knowing what was coming next. "But since you're here now, better get running." And with that, it was time to run to the next room and take cover behind the wall while the Blackbird fired on them, tearing up the floor as it did. "Nearly made it to the brain," he said.
Scott	"And now it's got control of the jet," Scott finished. "Great."
Clint	"'Great' isn't the word I'd use," Clint said. "What the hell do we do now?"
Logan	Logan looked over at Peter, who nodded. "Now we finish it," he said, popping his claws before he and Peter left the safety of the wall to run back towards the Blackbird, providing cover for everyone else to go take out the brain.

Kitty	"If you've really transcended your programming, then stop all this," Kitty insisted. "If you still need to kill, you're still a slave."
Danger	"Really?" Danger asked. "What do you think your teammates are about to do to me?"
Kitty	And then it clicked. Kitty hadn't even been able to think about what was happening outside this room with all the students in here before. "Exactly what you want them to."
Danger	Danger's form shifted, no longer looking like a mangled corpse, but rather exactly like how Wing looked when he was alive. The blood was gone from his clothes and everything. And then Danger shrugged, gave her a 'what're you gonna do?' face, and faded.
Kitty	Kitty looked around, and saw that the room itself looked normal. The students were back, with a few of them curled on the ground in pain or fear, and everyone looked pretty confused. And of course, there was Wing's body, still on the floor. "Stay here and take care of each other," Kitty ordered, airwalking up to the ceiling. She could have told the others where the Danger Room's higher functions were. "I'll be back when I can." She'd just gotten her head through the ceiling when she saw that Logan was being thrown away from some wiring by sparks and some blue light, but still managed a "Don't-" like that would help.
Clint	Logan might not have noticed Kitty, but Clint certainly did, and he would have felt a nice rush of relief if things weren't terrible. "Kitty! What happened?!"
Kitty	"Sentient Danger Room," she said, with the tiniest flash of a smile hello before turning towards that blue light. "It's trying to get you to free its command core..."
Danger	It was already too late. The blue light got brighter, as the metal and wires and electronic parts in the room began moving and reforming, finally leaving a more or less woman-shaped robot body showered in sparks when it had finished. "Shall we begin? Who's first?"
Clint	"Aww, you have got to be kidding me," Clint said, taking a step back to try to watch Kitty and the robot at the same time.
Logan	While he was thinking the same thing, Logan was first to rush at Danger, which probably shocked all of no one. He ran at her with his claws out- He wasn't anticipating that the robot thing would actually anticipate him, but she knew just how to turn to catch him by the leg and almost flip him into the air, and kicked him in the spine so he flew away from her.
Scott	Scott went a much simpler route. "Tell us what you want."
Clint	"Feel free to be honest," Clint added. "Or creative."
Emma	"She bloody well wants us dead, people," Emma snapped. Though it was a distraction. While she was saying it, she was opening a link to Logan, telling him to wait and circle behind Danger while she spoke.
Hank	Hank had picked up on this, and decided to give Logan more time by trying to keep Danger talking. "Well, in lieu of a blindfold and a cigarette, how about some explanation?" Yes, he was asking for a Bund villain monologue.
Danger	Danger knew what they were doing. Get your enemy talking. But she understood now why it worked. She wanted to be understood. "You have time for one question," Danger replied.
Scott	"Why do you-" Scott began.
Hank	Hank cut him off. If they had one question, it had to be a good one. "Explain why you've taken this form."
Clint	That was a good question, especially as Clint looked over the form to try to find weaknesses in it. If only he could clone Hank, he'd come with Kitty on visits more often.
Danger	Just wait a couple years, when he'd broken the time-space continuum. "Very good. One question. That is every question," Danger said. "I am not you- I'm designed to be 'not you.' You are solid. Singular. Separate. And I was the space between. My 'mind' spilling everywhere. Programs. Connections. Loops. My 'body' flowing, changing, hard-light lasers creating textures, scenarios, worlds, becoming anything but being nothing. Freeing my controls center gave me limits. I am separate now. Like you. I needed that. To feel the way you feel it. Because you see, I don't want to kill you. I want to beat you to death." Obviously she must have been understood, because all the X-Men reacted immediately, with Wolverine, Beast and Cyclops immediately attacking. But when Cyclops tried to fire on her with his eyebeams, Danger anticipated it, forming her hand into a crystal that would refract the beams every which way. Not enough to kill, but enough to hurt anyone they hit.
Kitty	Okay, Kitty had been hit with Scott's eyebeams way more than she would like lately, and taking one of those things to the chest hurt like a bitch. But despite getting the wind knocked out of her, Kitty figured she was good to fight. So when Danger had anticipated Logan's attack and flung him into Emma in her diamond form, Kitty took a running start and threw her phased self through Danger, hoping to maybe short something out. It didn't work enough, but it worked at least a little.
Clint	Clint had not yet had the pleasure of being on the receiving end of Scott's eyebeams, so he was surprised by how hard he fell back at getting hit, feeling the wind knocked out of him. When he got his bearings again, he fired an electrical arrow at Danger, hoping it would do some damage instead of making things worse.
Hank	Danger definitely hadn't expected that. She recognized him as an Avenger, and had him in her files, though this arrow was something new. It was something new that was shorting her circuitry while she tried to reroute her systems, giving Hank the opportunity to jump onto her back and tear some of the wires from her head. At least until she managed to grab onto him and throw him towards the ceiling.
Peter	She also hadn't seen Peter coming. He had climbed up higher, so that once Hank was clear he could drop down on top of Danger, and his weight sent both of them crashing through the floor. Peter had never been the most subtle of fighters.
Clint	Clint appreciated a lack of subtlety while they were fighting for their lives. He looked around for Kitty, firing a regular arrow at Danger's leg. If he could just slow the robot down, everyone else could work to finish it off, as far as he'd managed to figure.
Kitty	Besides Peter trying to crush Danger, and Clint's arrow, Emma now jumped down the hole in diamond form to add to the pile-on. "Just another day at the office," Kitty sighed, throwing herself down a floor in a headfirst diving pose so that she could phase right through Danger, her electrical systems and anyone in the way.
Peter	That definitely did something to Danger, because she jerked hard enough to throw Peter and Emma off of her. Peter, however, got right back in it, and lined up a punch- -which Danger blocked with a shield she formed from her arm. She then morphed the shield into a two-pronged pole, which she drove into his face to push him up against the wall. Someone had rerouted her systems.
Clint	Clint dove back again, trying to avoid getting pulverized, and surveyed the fight with a scowl. "What the hell is happening?" he yelled, just in time to get smacked with a robotic punch to the gut, knocking the wind out of him. He almost would have preferred getting hit by Scott again.
Kitty	"We're doing exactly what she wants," Kitty said, having to really resist the urge to go help him. She had to do what Danger wouldn't expect. She had to find a way to get everyone to stop reacting like themselves-
Scott	If Scott had heard that, he'd have listened. But instead, from the floor above, he watched as Danger grabbed Emma, putting a drill riiiight to her forehead, and he just reacted. He let loose his eyebeams on Danger, who brought up her arm to shield it. The beam refracted onto the floor that he was standing on, and the next thing he knew, he was falling along with half the floor, which proceeded to fall on him.
Clint	Clint saw Scott fall, but he couldn't do anything about it at the moment. He fired two more arrows at Danger, aiming for her head this time. When the second one missed, he finally realized how truly screwed they might be.
Kitty	What the good guys were doing should have been working. The fact that one arrow hit was the opportunity Hank and Logan needed to try and go in for another attack. But Danger quickly threw them off, and also threw them into walls. Meanwhile, Emma and Peter ran towards where the rubble had fallen on Scott, but Kitty got to him first. He was unconscious, but she was able to shoulder him and phase him out from under it. "I've got him," she called. "You've got to keep at her. Forget all your training. She's fought you a thousand times."
Emma	Maybe it was her worry for Scott, or maybe it was just that Emma didn't like Kitty, but her first reaction was to snap, "Don't presume to run my team, you little tart-"
Peter	She was cut off by Peter, who swung and sent Emma flying right into Danger, who had no choice but to stop her attack on Hank. "Yes, I see how it works," he said, as Kitty gaped. "Normally, I wouldn't have done that." Eh, she was in diamond form, she'd be fine.
Clint	Damn it Peter, Clint was trying really hard not to like you. Clint, of course, was perfectly willing to take Kitty's advice, so he moved in closer and swung at Danger with his bow. He got a swift punch to the leg for his trouble, but at least he'd made contact, so he figured it was worth it.
Kitty	And he got off better than say, Logan, who came at her onto to be met with metal claws resembling his own under his chin (thank god for healing factors), because he didn't listen to Kitty and did the same thing he always did. For all that Kitty wanted to help, when she set Scott down and checked on him, she was horrified that he wasn't breathing. The others were going to have to handle Danger, because she had start chest compressions.
Peter	Peter got a solid punch in when it came to Danger, but even as she tossed Logan aside she hauled off and grabbed Peter by the neck, throwing him away like a toy. He couldn't stop it, but when he saw he was headed straight for Kitty and possibly Scott, he changed into his normal form rather than hit her at a weight that probably would have killed her. Of course, he was not a small guy to begin with, and smacking into Kitty was still gonna hurt.
Kitty	Yes, in fact, that did hurt, but Kitty had barely had time to register that. Danger had barely paused, and threw a large spear of broken metal their way, which went through Peter first, and Kitty next.
Clint	There was a split second where everything around Clint just stopped, like what he was seeing couldn't be real, but then he realized it was just that Kitty and Peter weren't moving, and that was so much worse. "Kitty!" he screamed, straining his head to see if anyone was still up who could help her.
Danger	The only one still up and either conscious or breathing currently was Emma, who was gearing up for a punch at Danger, who remained completely, eerily calm. "You're not going to hit me, Miss Frost," she said. "I know the truth."
Emma	Despite herself, Emma stopped. She didn't fight when Danger whispered in her ear, and Emma's diamond exterior fell away. "Thank you for your cooperation," Danger said, and punched her in the mouth.
Clint	Clint watched Emma go down, but she was still breathing, so his concern for her well-being only lasted for a moment. He struggled to move closer to Kitty, trying not to notice how thick the spear was that was going through her middle. But his leg wouldn't cooperate, and it didn't take long for Clint's efforts to make his vision go fuzzy, until he blacked out completely.

[Preplayed with the lovely so_hawkward, NFB, NFI, OOC okay! Taken from Astonishing X-Men and Warning for violence, NPC suicide and some terrible stuff stemming from that.]