[Plot] Power Testing: Robin Stanton

[Robin Stanton]

"You do realize I could just tell you what I can do, yeah? Been doing this since before I could walk, my Dad led the X-Men and my Mum's a Mutant Geneticist who had to screw my Dad's head back on with science. Literally. And on multiple occasions." Robin brags as she makes her way into the Danger Room, glancing up at the observation booth with her eyebrows raised and a look of bring-it-on in her eyes.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Well, your mother is a scientist," Lippencott said over the intercom. "So she must have taught you about the importance of proper data collection, yes?"

[Robin Stanton]

"Yeah, but I was never a good listener."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Your grades do seem to indicate that, yes," Lippincott deadpanned through the intercom.

[Robin Stanton]

"Whatever man, this is like a vacation. Grades and stuff like that don't really matter here."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"You do want to remain at the university, correct? Or is my understanding of your situation flawed?"

[Robin Stanton]

"Yup. Straight Cs for cruisin'." Robin says, making fingerguns at the observation deck.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"It really is disappointing to hear you say that. You have so much potential; you could do so much good."

[Robin Stanton]

That causes Robins flippant bravado to stumble a little.

"I do! Just don't need straight As in Math or Geography for that." she mutters.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"But the university here can offer you opportunities -- but we can't allow everyone to access everything. The best and most exciting opportunities are reserved for the students who do the best. If you applied yourself a little, I'm sure you could be one of those."

[Robin Stanton]

Robin groans. "You sound like Mum."

"Let's just get on with this. It's something I'm actually good at, yeah? I'll balance out the book learning with Danger Room scores."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Well, we'll see. Your father put up some impressive numbers. Does the apple fall far from the tree?" he asked, as he began booting everything up.

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Beginning.  Test.  For Student.  Zero.  Two.  Three.  Three.

The danger room...didn't really change; still being in it's relatively blank space. The only thing added was a brick wall behind her, and another moving on a track towards her, with a hole in the shape of a person cut out of it.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin rolls her eyes and stands in the same pose as the cutout, letting the wall rush past her and once it does she contorts her face into an exaggerated grimace while still holding the pose. Very mature and technically-an-adult.

[Narrator]

Another wall started coming towards her, this one with a very, very thin opening -- still a rectangle, but one more fit for being a letterbox than a doorway.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin defiantly sprints towards the wall and barrels into it, squishing into the gap more with force than elegantly shifting into shape, forming hands and arms on the other side to find a grip and push the rest of herself through.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Not quite as elegant as your father, but I suppose that works as well," came Lippencott's voice over the intercom.

Because she had sprinted forward, the next wall was already almost on top of her -- a curly, spirally shape that looped and curly-queued-around.

[Robin Stanton]

"That's cause I'm not..." she grunts as she pops out of the wall and lands in a jumble of arms and protoplasm. "...my Dad." she finishes and lobs herself at the next segment, thinning out and trying to repeat the same trick through the twisty-corkscrew opening.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"No, I suppose you're not," Lippencott said. "Would you care to expand a little bit on how your philosophy of shifting, form and self differs from him?"

Robin wouldn't have any trouble getting through the twisty-corkscrew -- this was pretty basic stuff. But now, a new shape was headed for her from ahead, and a second started winding up from behind, each in a different shape. It looked like it was set up for her to stand in the middle, and try to match the two shapes together as the walls came together. They were also speeding up.

[Robin Stanton]

"Sure, lemme just whip up an essay for you, not like I'm busy or anything." she says as she slaps her hand onto the floor, fingers splaying out into goop and seeping into the ground before she starts yanking on her arm, pulling at the ground and trying to animate it enough to dislodge it enough for her pulling to have any kind of effect, hopefully derailing one of the oncoming walls.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Oh, an essay isn't required; a simple conversation would suffice," Lippencott continued, as if Robin wasn't in a busy situation.

Now, here was an interesting twist. The simulation the danger room was providing wasn't giving anything for Robin to really seep into; just brick after brick. But as her hand went into the floor, she could get access to the danger room itself. Ripping out an emitter or something might not put her in the best graces of the headmaster, though it was certainly at the very least possible, as the walls continued to close in.

[Robin Stanton]

Instead of going for the intricate high-tech emitters that are gonna upset everyone if they get dislodged or smashed Robin simply grumbles about the lack of simulated environment and pushes her will into one of the floor panels. Wrenching it to and fro she tries to make it stand up and serve as a wedge between the two oncoming walls.

"I mean just look at this test..." she grunts as she's working. "The whole thought behind it is that he's gonna contort himself into whatever you throw at him."

[Ballinger Lippincott]

Robin's ability gave her an edge -- no one could normally budge those floor panels, but now they had the will of a Stanton in them, and Robin could get it to stand up and help provide a wedge; a place to be safe from the threat of being smushed. It exposed the delicate innards of the danger room below, but hey -- she hadn't touched them, so she was probably fine, right?


"It's a test of versitility and flexibility; one he was far more accepting of than you are."

Robin could hear Lippencott typing something over the intercom as he spoke.

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Beginning level tw

*zzt*

Beginning level three.

From all directions, simulated panels started coming out of the walls, the ceiling, the floor, all headed in Robin's general direction! What happened to level two?

[Robin Stanton]

"Of course he was. It's what he does. This is what I do." she huffs and let's the floor-panel envelop her, warping it into a vaguely humanoid shape, four strips of metal peeling away to form limbs and two of them curling up at the ends to serve as fists she starts swinging at the oncoming walls.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Do you often feel like you have to hide your inner self from the world?" Lippencott continued with the armchair psychoanalysis, as Robin made her super-fighting-robot suit, punching and swinging. Because the suit was made out of the same stuff as the panels headed towards her, the punching was rather effective, deflecting the panels and sending them away on random trajectories.

Unfortunately, the panels making up the floor were moving as well, including just now the one Robin was standing on, sending her soaring through the room towards yet more oncoming squishers.

[Robin Stanton]

Robin leaps from her suit, leaving it behind to be crushed as she folds herself into a paper-plane and sails around the room, trying to avoid more crushers.

"Yeah, I'm just too shy." she quips.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"It is just interesting, how much your father leaves himself open, and how much you like to hide inside of things, when your powerset is so similar in many respects."

A pair of large claws came out of some of the remaining wall panels, reaching for the Robin-Plane and clanging together loudly.

[Robin Stanton]

While she has some control over her flight the clamp manages to snap close on her paper-wing, causing her to snap back into human shape, dangling by her arm where it's smooshed by the claw.

"Oh yeah, he never hides away as an inanimate object or anything. Unheard of!"

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"I'm not sure I would qualify that as hiding -- he usually sits out in plain sight, does he not? You only consider it hiding because he doesn't have a sign on with his name on it. Does he embarrass you?"

A series of other claws came in, trying to grab Robin's other arms and legs.

[Robin Stanton]

"He's my Dad. Of course he embarrasses me. That's his job. But to---hey!" she interrupts herself when the other claws grab her and she takes a moment to throw a pointed glare at the observation deck. "But to answer your actual question, no he does not. I'm just as weird as he is and the specifics are really none of your bee's wax." she goes on, tugging testingly with her limbs.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

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Beginning Level Four

The claws had a fairly firm grip on Robin's arms and legs -- and now they started moving around, stretching and pulling, trying to test Robin's....elasticity? Flexibility? Durability? Something like that.

"Well, I'm very glad to hear that you're alright with his situation. That would avoid a fair amount of awkwardness.

Tell me. What's the longest period of time you've stayed in a form other than your own?"

Lippencott kept going as if he was making casual conversation, as the manipulating claws continued to tug and pull.

[Robin Stanton]

"My whole life? You don't think I have naturally pink hair, do you?" she groans as she tries to ignore the stretching and focus on letting her squished hand seep into one of the claws to bring it about and smash into the next closest one.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Well, yes, but this is your base form, correct? The one you return to when you're not actively shifting into other things. Much like Ms. McManus' form is of a young redhead, or Mr. Stanton's form is of a green-haired boy. I'm curious about your endurance in other forms; that's not something particularly easy to test."

The stretching and folding would disorient Robin some, but it didn't take too much effort for her to seep into the claw, smashing it into the one grabbing her other arms, causing THAT one to fly off in a random direction and let her go.

So she now was being suspended in the air by just three claws, one of which she had control over. Better than nothing!

In response, the two remaining claws grabbing her legs started retracting. Quickly. In opposite directions. Without letting go of Robin.

[Robin Stanton]

"There's no... hrng... base form 'cept the boring brown-haired mousy girl. Everything else is who I am. Becomes like a posture. Familiar and comfy. I am..." she yanks on the claw under her control and tries to make it tear itself from the wall as her legs are stretched. "...who I am. This Sam's probably not there yet but mine, like my Dad, kinda forgot what they're supposed to look like. Base form..." she snorts.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

With the power of a self-reaffirming statement of identity and purpose -- and, uh, her innate powers above and beyond her father, which meant putting her through his testing program was rather short-sighted -- Robin was able to tear the claw from the wall.

Now. Let us think about physics for just a moment. Previously, Robin had been attached to the walls at four points, one from each leg, and one from each arm. Now she had removed both arm supports, leaving the only thing keeping her from falling the two leg-claws, which were still stretching and pulling in opposite directions. The most likely end result here would be Robin hanging upside down, with the remains of the claw she's torn from the wall dangling down below. I mean, I suppose that is still better, but very dangley and stretchy.

"Mmm. But you do identify as the pink-haired girl, yes? Perhaps I should be going to more basic points."

Streeeeeeeeetch. How could Lippencott be so calm?

[Robin Stanton]

"Or maybe it's a compromise to people being able to recognize me. Or maybe that is part of defining yourself by how others see and interact with you. Or maybe I'm just annoyed you want to slap some kind of label on things while you turn my legs into noodles. I've learned shapeshifting from a man who sometimes is a towel and a woman who can read my mind like a book. You're gonna have to do better than this oversized Play-do Factory and Psych Eval 101." she rambles as she dangles upside down, swinging back and forth with the cumbersome claws on both arms, building momentum to try and smash her legs free as well.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

"Or maybe it's a compromise to people being able to recognize me. Or maybe that is part of defining yourself by how others see and interact with you. Or maybe I'm just annoyed you want to slap some kind of label on things while you turn my legs into noodles. I've learned shapeshifting from a man who sometimes is a towel and a woman who can read my mind like a book. You're gonna have to do better than this oversized Play-do Factory and Psych Eval 101." she rambles as she dangles upside down, swinging back and forth with the cumbersome claws on both arms, building momentum to try and smash her legs free as well.

Robin was being stretched very, very thin, but with enough momentum, she was just - just, mind you -- able to generate enough destructive force to snap the cables grabbing onto her legs, sending her crashing to the ground.

"So, you're saying that you're fine being treated in any manner befitting the form you choose to take. I understand. It's an unusual mindset, but you come from an unusual place."

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Beginning Level Five

The panels retreated to their spots on the wall, and a button popped up on the other side of the room. Easy peasy!

Except at that moment, flamethrowers erupted from the walls, bathing the danger room in an inferno -- exactly as had been done in Will's training session earlier in the week. Had Robin talked to her father about what he had gone through, or would she be winging it?

[Robin Stanton]

Robin flops to the ground and spends a moment grabbing her legs and reeling them in like a rope to help herself recover fast as the room erupts into flames. She scrambles to wrench herself into the shape of a car although initially it looks like an oversized but simple wooden car toy. Which quickly begins smoldering in the flames as she forces the basic shape to be more complex. Armored panels pushing through the outer layer of burned wood as she slowly turns herself into a kludged together Jeep straight out of a Mad Max movie.

"I said..." she manages, punctuated by a grunt that has the tone and quality of a car horn. "I am what I am. You wanna treat me like a car right now? That's your decision. Not entirely unfounded but that doesn't mean you get to define me." she adds before tires squeal and begin to melt a little as she barrels through the flames towards the button.

[Ballinger Lippincott]

As Robin barreled forwards, a crusher appeared out of nowhere (extremley unfairly) and came down hard on her roof, smashing her to the floor as the flames continued to swirl.

As for Lippencott, he kept on in the same tone he had been going on throughout the exercise.

"Well, it simply can't be just my opinion. If I were to assign you to the motor pool, for example, you would have to decide whether to accept that or not. How you define yourself alters how people can expect to treat you. After all, from what I am told, you've yet to go and register your car form with the DVLA, or get your MoT."

[Robin Stanton]

Robin's wheels quickly burn through their melting rubber and shriek in a shower of sparks as metal grinds against the floor, providing not nearly enough traction to squeeze out from underneath the crusher.

"Wow, my Dad really colored your perception of shapeshifters, huh? Go on, try treating me like a car and see what happens." she groans as her car shape buckles.

[Narrator]

There was a pause for a moment from the booth.

And then, all of a sudden, the danger room shimmered. The gouts of flame disappeared, the crusher dematerialized, the button vanished, and everything changed.


Robin found herself surrounded by other cars, on the startline of a massive oval; the stands filled with fans. A man in an Xaviers-branded racing suit was approaching her, holding a helmet in his hands.