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"I, for one, look forward to whoever is running against Pietro to whup him," Jacen said. That definitely elicited a few weird looks from the other passengers in the car. "What? Just cause we work together doesn't mean I have to be friends with him."

He laughed a bit at the thought of Pietro getting extremely pissed if he lost. Something that would greatly make Jacen's day. "Penance, if you could just drop me off in town, I'll be able to make it back the rest of the way on foot."

"You sure?"

"That I am. Besides, I suppose I should go greet the fan club, eh?," Jacen retorted. "Who knows? Maybe they have brochures and gift baskets that need my personal stamp of approval."

There was a still silence in the car until Penance pulled off to the side of the road. "Guess this is my stop," Jacen said as he climbed out of the car. "Thanks for the lift, Penance. I'm sure we'll be running into each other at school. Later." Jacen waited for the next person to climb in front, but all there was was a puff of acrid smoke and blue elf sitting where he once was. At that, Jacen closed the door and turned around to head into the town.

OOC: Sorry bout the shittiness of this. Tired, waiting work, and battling writer's block. Anyways, nice post Penance. 3nodding

OOC: Heh, I thought I was a little over dramatic battling tiredness myself last night but I'll talk the compliment wink It's always fun bantering with you Reaver.

IC:

Penny bit her lip and thought for one second. She looked at Kurt for one second with that pissed off adrenaline still in her blood. In a jerk, she threw the car into park, "Give me one second."

Leaving her keys in the ignition, she got out of her car in no haste. Are you seriously going to do this? That thought went in and out of her head pretty quick.

"Jacen," She said before he got too far away.

"Yea?" He turned around to look back at her.

"If things don't work out too well with the Jacen Fan Club," She then realized what the hell it was she was actually doing and completely and uncharacteristically clammed up, "um... If things don't work out with them, s**t this worked out better in my head... Could you consider being my date to prom? I'd hate to go stag and..."

She sighed and she felt like a total a** at the moment, "Well, you're one of the more interesting people I know. Anyway, I won't be offended if you don't want to. Just thought I'd throw that out there. Go have fun with the girls. That one really digs you."

Still feeling like a total a**, she got back into her car and responded to none of the looks she was getting from the people around her. Regina had a 'what has gotten into her' look on her face. Penny saw it and turned around to speak to her friend, "We can talk about it later. We have a training session to get to. I, for one, do not want to find out why Porter's codename is Fear."

"You mean you didn't crack into the files yet?" Jamie was surprised.

"Had no time. The Institute was busy being attacked... AGAIN," She smiled trying to take the focus off her behavior. She watched the scenery go by in her mirror. There had to be a balance, she thought. One where she could be the free spirit of her past and still be the responsible one at the Institute. She knew that a lot of the younger kids looked up to her and she was their example... but how much of herself did she have to give up.

Morgan nodded, and turned his attention to the different training areas. He let out a sigh, wishing that he was able to get in on the action. He still had no real grasp of his powers; they seemed to show up only when he needed them. Outside of a fight of something, his only "powers" came from his ninjutsu training. Then again, being a ninja master did have it's perks.

He could sneak up on, or past, pretty much anyone, make a quick getaway, fight hand to hand if he needed to, and skillfully use several sharp pointy things.

But that was all stuff that he could do with or without his powers. He wanted to learn to fully control his abilities, not be controlled by them, wondering if they're going to show up at the worst possible moment.


{And he still hasn't manifested the invisibility yet. I think it'll show up like a camoflauge reflex at first, and he'll gradually learn to use it at will.}

OOC: Is this the type of reply you wanted?

IC:Jamie looked thoughtful when Penny went to talk to Jacen. Hmm. . . There are worse people in the world. . . He thought slowly, and then stopped paying attention until they were back at the mansion.

"Jamie, white room, the spheres are chameleons. Use your abilities to confuse them. I also would like you to learn how to use a weapon of your choice in order to defend yourself better: sword, gun, bo staff... it's your call."

Jamie bit his lower lip for a second while looking at the weapons. He finally picked up a belt, and strapped a katana to it, and a small sub-machine gun. His hand shook as he handled them, having never practiced with them. He'd seen them used often enough to be able to use them without killing himself, but that was pretty much it.

He stepped into the white room, and looked around. Nothing here. . . He thought for a moment, until he got hit by something in the back, hard. "God that was stupid" He berated himself quietly, pissed that he'd been caught of guard when he knew what was coming.

He moved to the center of the room, and suddenly, the walls changed from white to a dark blue. He grinned as the chameleons struggled to change color. He managed to clumsily slash three of them before they had changed, and he let the walls change to a bright yellow. He created an image of himself on the other side of the room, and he pulled out the sub-machine gun. Both he, and his double fired, taking out four more chameleons. He started to let change the walls to a black, but he struggled slightly from exhaustion, so they changed to white.

An easy change for the chameleons, they changed back to white, and he couldn't find them. He also lost control of the double, and he stood in the middle of the room, panting slightly. He held the katana in front of him with both hands, knowing in the back of his mind that if anyone who could use a katana saw him, they would cringe. He took a few clumsy swipes at the chameleons, but got pounded.

He took a deep breath, and took all the light from the room. He stayed on the defensive, and readied himself for some blows. When he couldn't see the chameleons anymore, he let the light back in double. The chameleons, blinded and standing out, were hopeless against a quick barrage of sword swipes, and bullets.

Jamie took a deep breath, and dropped to his knees, breathing heavily.

"Wow, he really knows how to kick you when you're down," Penny said and walked into the purple room. So far, though, the guy seemed to have a handle on things more than Ororo. Cocky SOB, though. She had to get into his file.

She stepped into the purple colored room and saw seven silver floating spheres. They were small and they were fast. She understood the test of senses. And then he said over the intercom: "Without your swords, Penny."

"Yes, sir," She said. She put down her swords and flexed her hands under their gloves, "Come and get me."

The first two flew by her so fast that she barely had enough time to focus to get out of their way. She caught the other one out of the corner of her eye but noticed it becuase of it's sound. It struck her hands with incredible force. Yea, it hurt, but she wasn't going to stop. The force lurched her back but she pushed forward to set herself right. Having it under her control, she set focus on another one bouncing off the wall towards her direction. She launched the one in her hand at a fast rate and crushed the one coming at her.

Of course, she had been so focused that she did one of the things Porter was probably looking for. She stopped paying attention to what else was going on around her. One of the spheres caught her by surprise and took out her legs. She felt to the floor with something either fractured or bruised. Mother effer took off the safties in my room. She pulled herself up with an obvious limp hoping her healing would start to kick in at any moment. Focus through the pain. Remember what Logan said. And so she focused on the spheres. She saw two of them coming at her. She pushed forward and let them both follow her. At a strategic moment, she threw herself to the ground, grimaced as her knee hit where it was injured, and the two spheres smashed into each other.

She heard Gen scream from her room. <******** this. Gen isn't ready for this. She picked up her two swords and looked at Porter in the observation deck. For the first time he wasn't wearing any glasses.

"Penny, keep to your own." He said and when he realized she was making eye contact with him he looked away.

Her telepathic block had a huge push on it like something was trying to get in. It didn't and she said, "Piss off."

She crushed the remaining three spheres with her swords and ran into Gen's room. The flame spheres were all over her. The girl was so afraid that she was making a fluff of a storm that wasn't doing any good. Penny pushed Gen down and one of the flame spheres came at her back. At least the safties were on but the heat was imense.

"Gen, I am going to lead them towards me. I can destroy them, but I want you to focus. Remember what you did hte last time we were in here? I want you to focus all that cold energy into one big icy blast if you can. Direct that storm right to the spheres. Remember to concentrate and focus, I know you can do it."

Penny used the flat side of her sword to bat the spheres away like they were a baseball. She ran with a painful limp towards the opposite corner having them follow her. They didn't catch her, though. A losely put together concentration of an icy storm struck them and then it was over.

Penny walked over and put her hand out to help Gen up. They walked out of her designated room, "Gen, go to the infirmary to make sure you're okay. The safties were on, but that was pretty hot."

She heard the intercom click on and said before he could, "Yea, boss, I'll be the first in your office."

ooc: i'm back in pensacola. however, in about 5 days i will be making a major move to orlando. *yawn* 9 hour drive today. an 8 hour drive on friday... forgive me if i'm slow this week.

ic:

Gen got herself looked over, slowly calming and quickly becoming angry that she had been forced in that position. What the hell was this place? Some kind of torture training camp? She began to wonder if the other place that she had heard that speed boy talk about was better than this.

Regina watched as the spheres moved around her. They were shadows themselves. She knew she had several options at her disposal so that didn't worry her. She wasn't ready for the lightning bolts that began hitting her though. They were low grade volts but they stung. Frowning, she began dodging the bolts and slipping in and out of the shadows of the room itself. Quickly she found that throwing the spheres into the shadows of the room was her best bet to be rid of them. She looked her arms over for welts that the volts had left behind.

"Great..." she sighed, but looked at the empty room. "Good job, if i do say so myself..."

Penance had, for all intents and purposes, blindsided Jacen before they took off towards their home. Her date for prom? He wasn't really entertaining the notion of prom at all. At the most, he was going to go into town and possibly meet those three girls to see what they were all giggles about when they saw him, but Penance.....she threw him for a loop.

"Decisions, decisions," Jacen muttered to himself as he walked down the road slowly at first, before picking up the pace. As he walked, he thought about that girl Miranda. Yes, she was smart, but also a rather good looking brunette. Something the girl did well to conceal. The more that he thought about it though, the more his thoughts leaned towards how bitchy she could be at certain points.

As he kept on, he thought a bit about Penance. Granted, he knew about her, but he didn't know her. Hell, he didn't know the other girl either. But he fought against Penance that one day. She was able to keep up with him, something not many people could lay a claim to. Out of that skirmish, she had almost instantly won his respect. The incident at that prison showed she was a capable leader, able to keep a clear, decisive mind when it mattered most. Also, very respectable in his mind.

While in thought, he wasn't paying any mind to where he was heading. All of a sudden, he felt someone run into his chest, stopping him in his tracks. When he looked down, he saw a familiar face.

"...Hi...," Miranda said sheepishly.

"Hello....Miranda, correct?" She smile faintly. "Fancy running into you here," Jacen said, "I'm assuming you're not alone?"

The girl started to blush a bit. "No...I'm not."

"Your friends, I assume," Jacen said. He heard some rather loud giggles and knew he was right on the nose. "So....what brings your neck into my woods, Miranda?"

"Well...," she stammered, "I was...um.....well, you know....wanting a date for prom, and......." She paused for a moment before blurting the rest out. "Iwaswonderingifyouwouldwannagotopromwithme?"

"Honestly, Miranda," Jacen said quietly, "I wasn't even thinking of going to that." She scowled. "Besides, miss. You were probably about twenty minutes too late....."

"What?!?!," she yelled at the top of her lungs.

"Indeed. I was just asked by Penny a few minutes ago. And she DID ask before you did. If I go, I'd be somewhat obligated to go with her."

"Penny?," Miranda said with a scoff, "Yea. She's a real winner." She turned on her heel and motioned for her friends to give up the fight. Before they left though, Miranda turned around and said something else, mainly out of spite.

"Good luck once A.J. finds out about this."

When they had walked farther down the sidewalk, Jacen started to laugh. A.J? It didn't matter about some pathetic, meaningless human. What would he do? Try to punch Jacen's lights out before being summarily destroyed and pulled apart limb by limb? He did know one thing though, if that idiot did get angry about it and he tried anything at school, Jacen would have to take his lumps like a man. After all, he was to remain inconspicuous.