First off, I'd like to apologize for taking so long in getting this chapter out. I don't know why it was so difficult for me, but it's finished so I'm happy. I promise that the next one won't take nearly as long. Disclaimer: Boy, am I getting tired of writing these things! I mean, everyone knows the basic schpeal, right? Oh well, I might as well get on with it. These characters belong to someone other than me (namely, Marvel) and I do not have their permission to use them. However, I am not profiting off of their use in any way. This story is purely for fun so I would really truly appreciate not being sued. Thanks Revelations: Part 7 Chris Votulle: June 1997 Kali splashed cold water on her face in an attempt clear her head. She just couldn’t believe that she was up at this ungodly hour. She wiped the water off of her face and looked over at Bobby who was standing in the doorway. “Where did you say we were going again?” “The Danger room.” “The *what* room?” She did not like the sound of this at all. She had been at the X-Mansion for three days now and she thought that she was getting used to life there, but unexpected things like ‘Danger rooms’ kept on throwing her for a loop. Bobby grimaced. “It’s really not as bad as it sounds. Scott just wants to test out your powers to see what you can do. The Danger room is where we all go to train. It’s essentially a holographic playground. Well, sort of. Okay, not really but I can’t explain it any better.” “If I say that my leg is still bothering me will he let me go back to sleep?” “I doubt it. One thing you’ll learn about Scott is that he’s extremely strict when it comes to training and developing our mutant powers. He doesn’t accept any excuses and he’s big on giving lectures.” Bobby rolled his eyes in a way that made it obvious that he had been on the receiving end of many such lectures. “Oh great -- another thing to look forward to.” Kali inwardly swore for allowing herself to say such a thing. These people were nice enough to invite her to live with them and already she was complaining. She didn’t want to appear ungrateful. She just wasn’t a morning person. “Don’t worry. If you aren’t a practical joker like me, or a wise ass, then he’ll probably leave you alone. Let’s get going. You wouldn’t want to be late on your first day, now would you?” “No, I suppose not.” * * * * * Bobby had left her standing outside of the door to the Danger room. He told her that he would be up in the control room with several other people who would be evaluating her. She got the distinct impression that this whole thing was an exercise in intimidation and she had to admit that the effect was not lost on her. However, she was determined to do her best so she hid all outward appearances of trepidation and walked into the room seemingly full of confidence. She found herself in a huge room that resembled a large gymnasium, except for the fact that the walls were constructed out of some kind of metal and there weren’t any basketball backstops hanging from the ceiling. There was a window in one of the walls which revealed a control room of sorts. What it controlled, she had no idea. She could make out five figures inside the room: Hank, Scott, Jean, Bobby and Logan. She supposed that Hank was there because he is a doctor, but then again why would she have use for a doctor? Jean must be there because she is the only person whom Kali trusts completely so far and can also offer moral support. Scott’s presence was obvious. However, she couldn’t figure out why either Logan or Bobby could possibly be there. Before she had a chance to ponder this further, Scott began to speak. “Kali, this is an exercise designed to test your powers and how well you are able to use them. Before we begin though, I’d like you to tell us what exactly your powers are; or rather, what you’ve *discovered* of your powers so far.” “Well, from what I’ve learned from Jean it seems to me that you already know a great deal about my powers.” The cynicism in her voice was obvious. She was trying her best to deal with the current situation, but she didn’t like Scott, she didn’t like revealing much about herself, and she didn’t like being pressured into things. Logan snickered. Scott shot him a warning glance before replying to Kali. “Yes, that’s true. I’m sorry if you felt that we were prying, but anything that we learned about your powers was obtained from a brain scan that was meant to monitor you health. I assure you that we had no ill intentions. In any case, that’s in the past and we need to concentrate on the here and now. Now, *please*, will you tell me what I want to know?” What Scott didn’t know was that Kali was stalling because she had spent all of her life hiding her powers. What he was asking her to do was extremely hard for her. To *willingly* tell someone what she could do with her mutant abilities went against all of her instincts -- instincts that she had spent years developing. She knew that she had to tell him. She even wanted to tell him, but she couldn’t help fearing the consequences of revealing herself. She always had a fear of the unknown, and too much around her was unknown right now. She smiled at that last thought, although she knew that honesty was essential in this situation. It just seemed to her that Scott wasn’t being completely honest with her all of the time and he could use a little of his own medicine. Besides, there were some aspects of her powers that she didn’t want anyone to know about. They were just too painful. She wouldn’t lie to him -- she would just omit certain truths. Kali looked up at the X-Men in the booth. “Well, I’m nowhere near an expert on mutant powers so you’ll have to bear with me here. I have very weak telepathic and telekinetic powers as a result of a severed mind link with my brother. I don’t like using those powers and I don’t like talking about it so, please, don’t ask me to say any more concerning that particular subject. Besides that, I have two mutant abilities of my own. My first ability consists of shaping and elongating my hands into different objects made up of any material known to me. I can also separate my hands from my body which is rather disgusting so I tend not to do that. I’m telling you this because I’m sure that you’ll see within it the possibility of projectile weapons.” She paused to see if Scott was able to catch her sarcastic tone. If he did, he didn’t show it. “My second power is the ability to generate and transmit energy.” “What exactly do you mean by *energy*?” Kali smiled icily. She just couldn’t resist a perfect set up like that. “The ability to do work.” Logan snickered again. Scott took a deep breath as he reminded himself that losing his temper right now would not be a particularly wise thing to do. “I am aware of what energy is, Kali. I just wanted a better idea of what exactly you can do with it.” “Actually, I’m not really sure of all that I can do with it. It’s not something that I’ve pursued. I just know that there’s energy inside of me and it wants to get out in any way that it can. I assume that you’re familiar with the different forms of energy? There’s electricity, light, heat, electromagnetics, etcetera and so forth. Like I said, I don’t know how far I can go with it. I’ve only used it for a few purposes.” Scott turned off the communication link to the Danger room and turned to Hank. “Can she be telling the truth? According to her she has unlimited power that she can use in any way that she wants. Doesn’t she realize the implications? This can’t be right.” Hank looked thoughtful. “Well, she said herself that she isn’t aware of her limitations. It is most probable that she doesn’t realize the full potential of such powers. Why not ask her what she can do with them?” Scott turned the intercom back on and addressed Kali. “Could you give us an example of your powers?” “Okay, but let me explain first. I don’t know if Dr. McCoy told you anything about my vision, but I have very weak eyes. I can see in extremely bright lights -- lights that could blind a person ordinarily -- but my eyes are incapable of adapting to darkness or dim lighting. That’s when I got the idea of creating my own light... like this.” As she spoke beams of light erupted from her eyes illuminating the area directly in front of her. “I guess I’m a sort of human flashlight,” she said as she grinned. “It comes in handy though.” Scott relaxed a little. She obviously had no idea of the destructive capabilities of her powers. That could be both a good and a bad thing, but at least he knew that she wasn’t lying. “Okay. Now that that’s over we can start with the session. I won’t throw anything too taxing at you. Just do what comes naturally.” Kali stared. Before she had a chance to ponder any more questions, a section of the wall slid open and revealed two robots which looked to her like they stepped right out of the pages of a cheesy science fiction novel. She continued to stare as they began to move towards her. *Quickly*. One robot lowered a rather menacing looking weapon and aimed it right at her heart. Instinctively, she ducked and then maneuvered to dodge the remaining onslaught of energy blasts. She shrugged. She stood up from her crouched position and faced the robots. The one continued to fire at her, but she didn’t avoid the charges this time. She let the energy emitted from the gun hit her square in the chest and felt a surge of power as it absorbed into her body. Her eyes began to glow an eerie blue. Obviously these weren’t very smart robots because now they both began to fire at her even though she wasn’t affected by the attack. She continued to absorb the blasts, but eventually she got annoyed and with a sweep of her arm she released the energy and effectively obliterated her pursuers. Kali turned around to face Scott in the control room, but she couldn’t see the window any longer. It was if it had just vanished. Suddenly, the space around her began to change. She was no longer in an empty room. She was instead in some type of jungle-scape. She could hear the whir of a door opening as more robots were released. That was when it all clicked. She tapped her foot on the ground and smiled when she realized that it was a metal base. She didn’t know much about fighting, but she did know a hell of a lot about computers and planned to use that knowledge to her advantage. >From his position in the control room, Scott saw Kali close her eyes and tense up. She seemed to be in some sort of a trance. A few moments passed. The robots were getting dangerously close and still Kali didn’t move a muscle. Scott knew that these assailants wouldn’t use the same fighting techniques as the first. They were more advanced models which learned from their predecessors’ mistakes. What all of this boiled down to was that Kali was essentially a sitting duck. Scott moved to shut down the program, but when he touched the control panel he was rewarded with a jolt of electricity. He tried again, but was shocked with even more voltage. “Kali, what are you doing? This is suicide!” Scott watched in horror as the robots closed in on the girl. He ran to the door praying that he had enough time to get down there and prevent a tragedy, but it wouldn’t open. He closed his eyes in despair as he leaned his head against the door. “Oh Lord -- what have I done?” Scott’s head snapped back up into position as a response to a sudden burst of laughter. To his shock he turned around and saw Bobby doubled over in hysterics with tears streaming down his face. Logan was chuckling, Jean was smiling, and Hank seemed completely dumbfounded. He ran to the window and saw that the Danger room had been tranformed to a Victorian style parlor where five robots were currently engaged in sipping tea around a quaint table that was trimmed in lace. Kali was lounging in a chair across the room, nonchalantly reading a book -- “I, Robot.” She looked up from her book for a moment and waved in Scott’s direction. Bobby completely lost it and fell to the floor while Scott just stood there with his mouth gaping open. Hank reached for the intercom. “Ahem.” Kali looked up again. “While it seems that my young friend Bobby is most amused by this situation, I believe that Scott here would appreciate some sort of explanation on your part. I must admit that I am also most curious to ascertain exactly how you managed to manipulate our technologies.” Kali put down the book and smiled a genuine smile -- the first that Hank had seen her wear. She stood up from the chair and the scene disappeared -- except for the robots, that is. “Your computer is absolutely amazing! I’ve never seen anything like it before. If you’d let me, I’d like to spend some time studying it’s intricacies.” Scott continued to gape. “*What*?” A look of realization crept across Kali’s face. “Oh, I’m sorry. Well, you see this room is composed of metal and metal conducts electricity. So, I generated an electric current and sent it though the metal workings to establish a link with your computer. Once that link was secure I was able to take full control of both the environment and the robots in the room. I didn’t major in computer engineering for my health, *sir*. It actually comes in handy.” “So you’re saying that you can manipulate anything that goes on in the Danger room? That is completely unacceptable. Your power is not reality warping. If this session were taking place in a real jungle then you would not be able to take such liberties. I’m going to have to ask you to refrain from taking over the computer from now on.” “Excuse me, but this session is *not* taking place in a real jungle and you told me to do whatever comes naturally. That is precisely what I did and now you’re criticizing me?” Scott was about to reply when he felt Jean’s presence in his mind. #Scott, don’t be so hard on her. She’s doing her best. Give it some time.# Scott sighed and addressed Kali again. “Okay, I think it’s time we tried something new."