Testing Powers

[Storm]

Storm hadn't decided on a fight scenario for her first session of active power use, now that the effects of her illness had lessened. Fighting immediately after months without training would be both ridiculous and a waste of time, and she didn't feel like indulging in either of those things. For now, she stood on the deck of a holographic ocean liner. The liner itself wasn't populated with anyone but her. Around her, the ocean itself moved, and there was land in the distance. There were mountains on the visible strip of land, and they were shrouded in fog. The day was clear, the sun shone down. She leaned on the railing, her cane resting on it unused for the moment. It still bothered her briefly that her stride was still not balanced enough for her to stop using it.

The breeze off the ocean blew across the deck, and she took a breath. This was more like a virtual playground, at least as far as her powers went. Despite the draw of it, she was still apprehensive, and it showed in her expression.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro had not insisted on accompanying Ororo to her first Danger Room session in over a year, but he had volunteered to do so. He stood in the back, watching, and prepared to help if she needed it.::

[Storm]

"Is it strange to be nervous?" she asked Pietro, knowing what he'd say simply because of long association, but using the small talk as a way to shed the apprehension.

[Pietro Maximoff]

"No." ::Pietro would not be nervous, as this was not an area where he experienced discomfort or nervousness. However, it was not abnormal given what she had experienced.:: "It is normal."

[Storm]

"It's good that something about this is normal," she remarked. "So much is not." That stood to be true for much of the past months.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro had never had to cope with life-threatening illness, but he had listened to enough coping lectures over the past few years, between Samson and Uncle.:: "You are more normal than you think."

[Storm]

"I meant about most of what has happened here, the past few months, not just me," she said, saying her previous thought aloud.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::That much as life, as far as Pietro was concerned. He shrugged slightly at that, as he could not think of anything worthwhile to add, and he had never been one for idle speech.::

[Storm]

Storm turned back to face the ocean, long used to Pietro's silences. The breeze strengthened unnaturally, although that wasn't a word Storm liked to use with reference to her abilities. Controlling the weather was never as simple as it often was made to sound. Although it was a type of telekinesis, it was much more then that. With telekinetics, often there were only a few laws of physics being manipulated, such as speed and gravity, unless the mutant in question was a Class Five and able to tap into sources of energy and manipulate laws most others couldn't. Movement of a particular object or group of objects didn't have many lasting consequences; even the movement of a large building, while definitely destructive, was within human ability to repair. The weather was different.

In her classes, Storm often used the example of a butterfly flapping its wings on one side of the world causing a hurricane on the other. It was a little overstated, but it made the point of her power: one small change in one place could have massive effects elsewhere. The resources of the Earth were finite, and had to be balanced. Causing a rainstorm one place meant the energy and water needed to generate it must come from somewhere else. It was delicate. When fighting there were certain measures she could take, things she could do that would cause little to no lasting effects, because she was pulling from a potential that was always there. But if she surpassed that potential, there was a cost to be counted.

After being ill for so long, and so out of control of her abilities, she wasn't sure how able she was to count that cost anymore.

Off to the east of their position, the clouds in the sky began to darken, just as her eyes began to turn white.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro stepped back, not from fear of her powers, but to grant her more room to maneuver; he did not want to crowd her. As sit was, he was here for support: both emotional and in the off-chance that something went awry. Beyond that, he was keen to watch and listen, trusting her to know her own limits.::

[Storm]

There had been a time in the past where it was thought Storm might develop into a Class Five mutant, the second in the X-Men next to Jean Grey. As a sixteen year old still in the local lockup, she'd entertained the fantasy of it with teenage glee, but as an adult, she was glad in many ways that it had not turned out that way. She preferred having the weather as her domain, with none of the unpredictability that higher level powers seemed to bring.

She visualized reaching up into the atmosphere, her psionic abilities giving her a view of a space she often referred to as the aetheric- the place where the energies that controlled the weather was concentrated the most. Storm could not figure out, even in a few sessions with the Professor, if this was simply a visual representation her mind designed simply to let her use her powers, or if it was an actual place. Regardless, it worked, and she reached out towards the darkened clouds, drawing energy to them. She saw molecules of hydrogen and oxygen in the air, collected them and bonded them to form water, heavy in the clouds. She pulled more energy, holding the storm together, while balancing out the calm air around it. It was the slowest process she had ever had to use in forming a storm, but she was being careful.

And just like that, there was too much energy. Air temperatures went wild. A vortex formed in the center of the cloud burst, and instead of a thunderstorm, she had the beginnings of a hurricane. Her breath caught, and the storm went wild.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::Pietro's body temperature was naturally a couple of degrees warmer than that of the average human, which was a byproduct of his so-called "speed physiology." Yet he felt the temperature drop around them and nodded to himself; Ororo was back to her old self, it appeared.::

[Storm]

She shook her head, more to herself then to him. "This isn't right." The storm she'd created in the distance was going out of control, turning the sea into a maelstrom. They weren't dead center in it, but they were close enough that the ship they were on tilted in the rough oceans. She couldn't spare enough concentration to settle it.

[Pietro Maximoff]

::That was...not quite what Pietro expected, and he frowned slightly at the comment. Glancing around them, he then asked,:: "Do you want intervention?"

[Storm]

"No." Even if she had, she was unsure of what he could do aside from turning off the simulation, and she didn't want to do that. If she couldn't do this here, where there were safety measures and off switches, she couldn't do it in real life. The storm grew closer, and the deck tilted, rising and falling at a sharp angle over the waves. "Just...hang on."