Xaviers!

Rory sat on bench in the garden, flipping through the playlist on his IPhone. The warm weather made the gardens a nice place for him to sit and think. He had arrived at the mansion earlier in the week, and was getting used to the new surroundings. He couldn't really complain, the place was a literal mansion, with plenty of space to be alone with his thoughts. He could imagine using the settings for inspiration, maybe try writing a new piece, the gardens definitely brought ideas to mind. It must have cost a fortune to have this place landscaped.

Of course that would have to wait. He was busy settling in, as well as getting his courses straitened out. It wouldn't be long till he would be taking classes, and of course working on his powers. Which was what he was doing now in fact. He found the song he was looking for, The Firebird by Igor Stravinsky. He pressed play and set the phone on the bench. He the stood and took a breath focusing. He concentrated, pulling stardust from his surrounding s an condensing it into his hand, shaping it into a rod, and refining it into a thin conducting wand that he raised as the music started. He imagined an orchestra before him as he began conducting. It was'nt ideal of course, the music was recorded and constant, he wasn't so much conducting as just tapping out the beat, but it freed up his concentration to focus on his powers. As the slow soft music began, he waved the wand in tempo, a fine steam of stardust forming at the tip and slowly rose into the air, looking like a starry stream as the dust twinkled and sparkled as it moved.

There's a rustling of air that might tug a little at the swirling dust as a young blonde woman glides down from above on her brown wings. She lands gracefully several feet away in what has to be a practiced pose that intentionally shows off some, wings still slightly spread behind her and only folding against her back when she stands up straight. She curiously watches Rory's performance, her lion's tail swishing (roughly) along with the rhythm of the music as she quietly waits for the music to finish, not wanting to interrupt. It's not her kinda music, but the accompanying show is more than enough to keep her attention. When Rory finishes she flashes a grin and claps.

"That was pretty sweet!" she says in an obvious American accent. She gives him a thumbs up, which probably isn't the appropriate way to show appreciation for classical music but it's intended that way at least.

Rory spread the stardust as the music continued it's slow and building tones, swirling them into galaxies while the tone of the music more mysterious. All that changed in and instance as the music changed from quiet and slow to an intense blast of instruments, the music furious and in a way frightening. The Stardust reacted to Rory's conducting, flying like comets all over the place and colliding into each other as the imploded into bursts of light. The music reached it's climax and the rest of the stardust crackled out of existence.

The Rory heard someone behind him applauding, he turned, a bit surprised to have an audience. What caught him more by surprise was that it seemed this observer had... well, wings and a tail for one, claws and fur for another. He hadn't really seen a mutant with physical mutations yet, though he knew of them. He had to double take for a moment before he realized the music was still playing and quickly turned it off. "Ummm... Hi..." he said, still caught a bit off guard. The conducting wand fell apart as he lost concentration. "I was just practicing..." he said, a bit unsure of how to proceed here. He wasn't exactly a social butterfly at the best of times, for him this was awkward, a stranger with an even stranger appearance, he worried about saying the wrong thing. He was easygoing when it came to accepting people, but he did worry about unintentionally offending, and addressing what looked like a winged lion woman was foreign territory for him.

Nailah for one seems well accustomed to that look of awkward politeness. She sees it a lot when she goes into Maldon. Although usually with random strangers there's a bit more fear mixed in and the lack of that is always a refreshing change. Still, it meant he was probably relatively new here. That and the fact that she hadn't seen him before. That part also was a big hint. "Yeah, I saw. It looked real pretty! I'm Nailah. And yeah, they're real." she adds with the hint of a smirk on her lips as she opens her wings ever so slightly. She manages to hold that for about half a second before she bursts out laughing. "Sorry, couldn't help myself. Most people here are pretty used to seeing me by now."

At least the... well, he wasn't exactly sure what he could associate with her since she had both lion and bird features. At least SHE was obviously comfortable with how she looked, he wouldn't have known how to handle it if she was blatantly self conscious and easily offended. She seemed to have no trouble letting his awkwardness roll off her shoulders. "Um... thanks... my name's Rory," he said, giving his name in return, "I'm a bit new here, so... you know, haven't seen many other mutants." He really hadn't had all that much exposure, none of his friends had been mutants and he was introverted, so didn't have a large sample of friends to draw from.

He still felt a bit awkward, unsure how this conversation was supposed to go beyond an introduction. But she had shown interest in his ability, so maybe there was a start there. "I make... well, I call it stardust, and it's easier to direct when I 'conduct' it." It was a vague explanation at best, he knew, it didn't even go into what it actually was or what it could do, though to be honest he wasn't exactly sure what it was to begin with. All he knew was it was the equivalent to explosive powder when he wanted it to be and he could direct it, he didn't have any clue what it was actually made of, but was sure it required some degree of scientific knowledge to even begin to figure that out.

"It's cool, most of us look pretty normal anyway. Most of the time anyway. Someone recently got all planted up though, so keep an eye out for him!" she chuckles, either oblivious to his awkwardness or determined to bowl over it with enthusiasm. "Leaves for hair and everything like a dryad or something. It's pretty recent though, I dunno how he's taking it, so maybe try not to stare when you do run into him. I saw your dust from the air, it looked pretty. Guess that's what the music was for, huh? Pretty cool way to train your power. I guess the conducting kinda puts you in the zone?"

Rory hadn't considered the possibility of someone being a 'plant man' mutant, thinking of mutants with animal characteristics was a pretty strait jump, but someone who was a plant was much more out there, and for a moment he thought maybe she were kidding, but then figured with him producing explosive dust, anything was possible.

"Well, it helps me focus," he said as Nailah commented on him being in the zone, "When your conducting, you are more focused directing the musicians and the tempo, it just translates well into directing my powers." He pulled at the pile of stardust at his feet that had been his wand, which floated back into his hand and reformed. "Of course, having music helps, but I suppose in real life I won't have that." he pointed the wand out, and a small galaxy flowed out from the tip, spiralling in mid air.

"I dunno, you could always have headphones along." she grins. "It's all about the right headspace, I guess. Make it all click in your head and just kinda flow."

She reaches out and curiously puts her hand in the way of the flowing dust to let it flow around her fingers, because poking at other mutant's powers is never a bad idea. Still, it looks like really fine sand and she's curious.

Rory had considered headphones, but had ultimately decided against it. "It doesn't seem practical to wear headphones, in real life you'd want to be able to hear, it's more about the practice then the music, being able to get to that state more easily." he said, tapping a beat with his baton and splitting the swirling galaxy into different parts, before condensing them into separate marble sized balls which glowed brighter as the sand particles interacted more intensely with one another, making it look like a number of stars swirling around each other. With an upward flick one of them shot into the air, then exploded like a firework, a few more flicks and the others followed suit in series, putting on a small fourth of july display in the garden.

"Yeah, that's true. You wouldn't wanna miss anything going on. Plus for practice it makes for a much cooler show with the music!" she says before she gets distracted by the fireworks.

"Oh wow, they explode!" she exclaims, suddenly rethinking her decision to just run her fingers through the stuff. "Swirly, pretty gunpowder. How much of a punch does it pack? Can you blow holes into walls and such? Ooh, can you make 'em burst into smoke?" she asks in what's probably an unusual series of applications for a young woman to jump to at the sight of fireworks.

Rory was starting to feel a bit more comfortable, Nailah seemed to be the type not easily offended, and rather upbeat to boot, so he didn't feel as worried about slipping up. And she seemed to be asking a lot of questions about his powers. Honestly he had not tested just how powerful his explosions could be, he knew that the more he detonated at once the more powerful the explosion, but he tried not to detonate too much to prevent causing damage or injury. "Well... I guess it's proportional?" he said thinking it was the most accurate description he could give. He swished the baton out, a small wave of stardust falling to the ground scattered losely, "But it is sort of like gunpowder I supposed, it's not very powerful in small amounts." He detonated the grains, and it went off like a bunch of firecrackers, popping and snapping as they burt with flashes of light. "Of course I don''t really want to test how much damage it could do." he added, making sure she knew that he wasn't the type that would try creating a bomb with his abilities.

"Oh wow... That'll do some damage I bet. And yeah, don't test that kinda stuff out here. There's a grounds crew but they get real cranky about that kinda stuff. Probably cause it happens a bunch and we got a special room for that kinda training and experimenting. Not sure if you even can break the walls in there when it's turned on. It runs on magic or something as far as I can tell." she chuckles.

"I've tried," said another American voice, this one with a bit of Texas twang to it, "I'm really not sure you can break it." Haley descended from the sky and dropped into a three point landing that put a bit of a crater into the lawn.

"Shit. Groundskeeper is going to be on my ass now..." she grumbled, looking down at the damage.

"Hey Hottie," she grinned up at Nailah. "And hiya new guy. Your powers are really cool. I'm Haley!"

"Special room?" asked Rory curiously. Being new to the institute meant he hadn't had the full tour of the facilities just yet, but given that their were probably places for mutants to train with their abilities, he guessed he shouldn't be surprised, but magic? That was a bit far fetched for him, even with the different accounts of possibly physics breaking abilities he and other mutants seemed capable of. His powers were the result of a genetic ability, even if he didn't understand the how, he knew if was something with a scientific explanation, so he assumed this 'special room' was likely just something else scientific.

The addition of another voice from above came as a surprise, he looked up to see a girl... flying? Well, that was a cool power. He had tried flying with his ability before, with little success, at best he could float a few feet off the ground, any higher and he had to blast himself up, after which it was basic freefall. The ability to freely fly seemed something you could only do in dreams, though apparent some people had that dream made reality."Uh... hey?" he said, unsure of the new arrival, "I'm Rory." he offered, though her initial reaction made him think that maybe he shouldn't have tried demonstrating his abilities to Nailah.

"Whoa, Haley, looks who's full on flying now!" Nailah grins at the other girl.

"And yeah, it's a training room, mostly for X-Men and such which is why it's called the Danger Room, but everyone can use it for power training. It's just an empty room but it can simulate almost anything, even stuff larger than the room itself. I asked the Headmistress how it works once but I didn't understand a dang thing." she chuckles.

"My dislike of push-ups was a strong incentive to get over my issues and get better at flying. I can also almost fly a plane now too. Mostly. Long story."

She smiled back at Rory, "nice to meet you!"

Rory wasn't sure about what Haley meant by 'almost fly a plane', was she trying to be a pilot? It seemed a little redundant if she could fly on her own, unless she liked flying planes as a profession. He guessed that it would probably make anyone feel safer if ejecting was always a safe option.

The danger room sounded impossible, but again he was sure there was some scientific something or rather behind it. It sounded like a good place to test his abilities without ruining the grounds. "Yeah, sorry about the lawn," he said, hoping she was not in any trouble because of it.

"Yeah, sounds like I missed some fun. That's what I get for breaking a rib..." she mumbles. "And don't sweat the lawn, it's barely noticeable!"

"Fun. Sure. We'll go with that," she smirked back at Nailah.

"Nah, nothing to be sorry about, cutie, was my own fault and I don't really give a shit anyway," she giggled towards Rory.

"Maybe instead of talking about the Danger Room we should just show our new friend what it can really do? It's some serious shit. It's like that tv show Star Wars the Next Generation. Or maybe it's Trek. I dunno. My dad loves that shit. But there's holograms and everything."

As Haley made the suggestion of showing him the danger room, his interest was peaked. "Sounds fun," he said, "You said it can be 'anything'?" he could imagine a room that could be anything and he was thinking of replicating carnegie hall for his conducting practices.

"Well, anything that's in there and you can program it yourself too, though unless you're real good it just kinda puts stuff together from templates. Like you can tell it to make a city and it'll put one together from a bunch of different buildings. It has a lot of stuff already in there though. Flying through the Grand Canyon? Wicked sweet." she grins.

"Yeah! Basically anything you can imagine," she grinned, starting to walk towards the Point.

Well, something that complicated would probably take some learning to figure out how to do, but Rory wasn't complaining, at worst that just meant finding the people who did know how to program the thing and getting them to do it. "I can imagine quite a lot," Rory said with a subtle sly smile, "And if it's as durable as you say, maybe I can put on a bigger fireworks display." He tapped his wrist a little, flicking the baton idly.

"Ooh, I know just the program you should try!" she says as they head towards the squat metal building that denotes the entrance to the Point. "You got your student ID on you?"

"You talking about the one with the Sydney opera house overlooking that bay or whatever it's next to at night? Because that would be awesome too."

Rory fished through his pocket for his phone, the case having a wallet which held his ID. "Sure thing," he said, following after. He imagined the students could access the danger room via the ID. He was ready to give it a shot, maybe get a better idea of how big a boom he could make. Better to do it in a controlled environment rather then find out by accident .

"Perfect! This'll be fun!" she says, pulling out her own ID from her pants pocket and swiping it at the door of the building that's almost reminiscent of a bunker entrance. At least until the metal door parts down the middle and slides opens to reveal the steel corridor leading down into the central area of the Point where countless monitors are arranged in front of a half-circle of chairs. Most of the monitors are off, but it's still obviously a briefing room of some sort. Everything looks slightly futuristic, including the door leading off to the side. Inside stairs lead up on the left, on the right lockers line the wall as well as two doors.

"On the left is the observation deck, you can look into the room when it's in use from there and control the room and such. Showers and such on the right and then there's the actual room..." she grins, leading them straight ahead to the large door that opens when they get near. A control panel next to it is showing the room's status as 'deactivated'. Stepping into the room lights turn on automatically, thin strips in the walls and the ceiling light up, set between the large metal panels that make up the room. It's maybe 40 feet across with a similarly high ceiling and otherwise completely empty.

"Ta-dah!" Nailah presents the so far rather underwhelming room.

Rory was a bit surprised at the switch from what looked like a contemporary mansion suddenly switched over to something out of a sci fi film. He looked on, a bit in awe as Nailah gave him the tour. All of this concluded with... a bit empty room. Well she had said it could be anything, but aside from all the techie stuff which he had no idea how it worked, it was rather... disappointing. "Um... cool?" he said, clearly unsure if that was the correct response or not.

Haley chuckled, "Trust us. This is part of the fun...you ready for the REAL big reveal?"

"I was thinking the blasting test-chamber, but Haley's idea is better. Computer, load Sidney opera house simulation."

The walls of the room shimmer as holographic emitters spring to live. The grey metal walls melt away into night-sky and ocean, along with the iconic building sitting on the shore, the three of them standing in front of it's entrance. Seagulls cry and the air suddenly blowing carries the smell of the sea with it. The only thing that might tip someone off they're not actually in Sidney is the fact that there are no people around whatsoever.

"No way," said Rory in awe of the sudden change of scenery. Had they teleported? He could swear they had, but they had told him about this. "Where did the ceiling go??" He wondered out loud, thinking it couldn't possibly really be the night sky for real. He tapped his baton a few times making a small ball before launching it upwards, pushing it higher and higher. It didn't hit anything. It simply streaked through the sky like a shooting star.

"Beats me. Something about spatial something or other. As far as I can tell it's magic." she chuckles. "You can add people too, but they tend to not be super convincing, especially when it's a lot of them. Unless you wanna fight, the room's got all kinds of behavior for that."

Haley grinned at the reaction--it was fun showing their cool toys off.

"Magic is the best explanation I've got too," she chuckled. "You can't find the edges. I've tried. You can really only see them if you call up the exit...Computer, show room exit," she called up to the sky.

The room beeped in acknowledgement and part of a row of hedges and skyline shimmered for a moment before a solid metal door appeared seemingly from nowhere.

Rory had no clue how they managed to make something bigger on the inside. This was akin to something out of Doctor Who. Or Star Trek. Then something hit him, "Wait, if this thing can make anything, does that mean that if it it makes a cliff you can really die if you fall off?" It occurred to him that if it was used for fighting, it was supposed to simulate real combat, he didn't know if things could actually hurt them yet, but considering what it was showing so far it wasn't a far fetched idea. The shooting star went out as he lost concentration on this fact. It was kinda sobering to think that if something went wrong the floor beneath them may suddenly just not be there.

"They've got pretty good safety features in here. Like, when I was learning to levitate higher, I'd come in here because the ground can actually sort of act like a trampoline or big foam pit thing. You can turn them off I think, but I think only the staff can do that."

"Yeah. I hear Miss Kinney only uses it with all the safety stuff turned off." she says with bit of an admiring tone to her voice.

"She can also, like, heal from getting hit by a truck in like two minutes, so she probably needs the challenge," she smirked.

Rory let out a short sigh of relief. "Good, I was a bit freaked out there for a sec." he admitted. "So I guess I just try see how big a bang I can make then?" he said, a little excited to see what he could do. It was what this place was for right?

"Hell yes," she grinned, plopping down on a nearby small outdoor stairway and getting ready for a show.

Rory tapped his baton out, imagining a beat, and particles started to swirl, pulling into the the wands tip. He flipped it up into the air, following up with a few more, detonating them in turn like fireworks. It was a baseline test and warm up, he would likely have to send a bigger explosion much higher, so he began stardust into a ball in front of him. This one was going to be big, so he took it slow, not wanting to loose control of it or detonate it prematurely. As the stardust collected, it began to glow like a star, slowly expanding to resemble a small sun...