Attention Seeking (open)

[Hellion]

Julian had about as much of regular school work that he could handle, so he had set off to find one of the staff to put him through a training session in the Danger Room. He wanted to hone his telekinetic skills in a combative way instead of his passive method of moving things around the classroom or his room, but there was more to it than just perfecting his control of his powers. He figured that if he showed how good he already was then the staff might see that he was actually ready to become one of the X-men, which he already knew that he was.

It was for these reasons that he was looking for a particular member of the X-men that he thought he could talk into running the Danger Room as well as put in a good word for him. Of course, Julian only thought that Forge would be the easiest one to convince because of the fact that the man had one of the strangest powers that Julian had ever heard of and was still an X-man, but the first step was to find him and then continuously nag the guy until he did what he wanted.

”If a guy with the ability to make any device that he can think of can become an X-man, then how hard will it be for someone like me?” This is what he kept asking himself as he searched the lower levels for the man who kept everything in mechanical in its best form, but he was beginning to wonder if he would ever find the guy. For all he knew, Forge could be behind a wall or something, and he had just walked past him. ”Alright. Where are you Forge,” he asked allowed as he made a right turn.

[Forge]

Forge sat in his workshop, bench in front of him covered in components. He was, at the moment, working on attaching a power source into his latest project: a single-point gravity manipulator. His movements were slow and careful; reminiscent of the way most people would handle an infant. Or a tiny fission reactor. Which, incidentally, he was. He was in no immediate danger from the device—he was damn well sure of that—but it was always best to respect anything that could potentially destroy his lab. He liked it the way it was, after all.

And there. It was in place. Forge let out a breath he'd been holding, checked his connections, and lowered the electromagnetic shield that had been separating him from the device. No chance of an accident now. With the press of another button, the blast doors leading out into the basement opened up, as well. He looked back down at his bench, satisfied. The core for the device was completed now; housing wouldn't take too long. And then, of course, the best part: testing it.

What? Someone said his name. Forge glanced up from the mess on his bench, and towards the door. To no great surprise, he couldn't see anyone there; probably someone still out in the hallway. He'd need to get up and everything. Ugh. Work. He gave a forlorn look at the components he'd been assembling before pushing to his feet. It could wait. If this was some student that had managed to break their face, it probably couldn't. Although, to be fair, there were plenty of students who could do with a little more suffering in their lives.

Poking his head around the doorframe, Forge saw a familiar-looking student up ahead. He gave a disappointed sigh. Speaking of students that needed a little more suffering. “Yeah, You need something?” he called out, giving the boy a quick once-over. No blood or broken bones. Usually he'd count that as a good sign, but not so much when Julian was involved. Someone really needed to deflate his ego a little, or it would probably suffocate everyone else out soon. What was he down here for? Worse, why did he want to talk to him? The kid wasn't working on another prank war, was he? No way Forge was getting involved this time. He'd learned his lesson after a certain incident with Nick Gleason and an aerosol sprayer of Nair.

[Hellion]

Julian was pretty sure that he if he started forcefully opening doors then Forge or someone would come to give him a stern talking to, but then again that might lead to him getting some humiliating punishment or having Miss Frost reprogramming his brain or something. Obviously, this was not an appealing result just to get into a Danger Room session, so he continued to wander around the basement area until he saw Forge pop his head out of a doorway. It seemed that the guy with the oddest mutation had above average hearing, which at the moment was a very good thing for Julian.

"I do need something, and you are just the person to help me out with it. That is, if you don't mind," said the young telekinetic as he walked towards the X-Men's tech person. He was debating how he wanted to do this, and it seemed like flattery and being direct was the best way to get what he wanted done at this point. If that failed, then Julian could always use reverse psychology on the guy to trick Forge into doing what he wanted, and if that failed then there was always doing the one thing that a real teenager would do. That was to threaten to do it on his own, which would force Forge either to help or put him into timeout or something.

"I was wanting to go through a Danger Room session to see how much I have improved in the use of my abilities, and as one of the best X-Men around I figured you would be the perfect person to run the simulation for me." Julian thought that he had done very well on being both flattering and direct in his statement, but it wouldn't do him any good if Forge had heard what he had said in the hallway. Then again, there had been no comment made by Forge, so Julian figured he was in the clear on the matter. "So what do you say? Are you up for helping me out?"

[Forge]

Oh no. Julian needed something. This was probably the point at which he'd make some insane request to get revenge against another student, and Forge would have to frown at him, and then make sure the boy never had access to his workshop. And then actually deal with correcting the kid's behavior himself, because Emma seemed to be insistent on turning a blind eye to Julian's douchey behavior. Irritating, to say the least. Just like Julian usually was. No wonder Frosty liked him so much.

“Suck-up,” he muttered under his breath, hoping that Julian wouldn't actually hear it. Right, one of the best X-Men around. Most of his time these days was spent making sure the younger, less-experienced team members didn't get themselves killed. And, unfortunately, watching idiot teenagers do their very best to kill themselves, then getting upset with his interventions. He rarely went on field missions these days, and he was perfectly fine with that. He'd had enough of getting shot at for several lifetimes. Staying in the background and making sure everyone else stayed safe was fine by him. Well, unless Sentinels were involved. That was reason enough go back on active duty.

Still, though, running a Danger Room session for him might be something he'd go along with. It would be almost like punching the kid in the face, after all. As long as he didn't actually break Julian, he'd have free reign. It was likely the only chance he'd get to deflate the boy's ego. Probably best to warn him first, though. If only because it would be incredibly satisfying to see Julian run off with his tail between his legs. Forge gave the boy a long, hard look, judging his merit. “Sure. I'll help. But I'll warn you first that the last time I made a session for a group of students, one of them ended up with PTSD. You sure you don't want someone else to test you out?” he asked. The PTSD thing wasn't even an exaggeration; Kyle had needed therapy for a while after that session. He still felt kinda guilty for it.

[Hellion]

In retrospect, Julian probably should have gone to Miss Frost about a session in the Danger Room, but it was going to take more than just her to get him the reputation he needed to be considered a possible candidate for the X-Men. In fact, he planned on talking to some of the other X-Men to get on their good side, but Forge was the easiest one that he could think of to deal with at the present moment. After all, the other members of the team would probably insist on sparring with him to see how well he could handle facing their powers as opposed to simulated ones, and Julian figured that they would use that as an excuse to beat up on him.

Julian didn't see Forge as capable of such a thing as the guy could be stopped by holding him inside of a telekinetic field, which was one of the ways that Julian could see forcing the 'inventor' to do what he wanted if he said no. Fortunately, Forge agreed to help him out, but he also gave Julian a warning about what might happen. Well, Julian was not putting much stock in Forge being able to traumatize him with whatever he could come up with, but he would pretend to think about it for a good amount of time in order to show that he was 'scared' of the Native American man. It was better to show that he was slightly frightened of the man.

"If others have found your running of the Danger Room to be difficult, then it should be a good test of my abilities, which makes you the right one to run the session." A logical argument seemed like a good way of convincing Forge that he was serious about this instead of his usual antics, but whether or not Forge would believe him remained to be seen. If not, then Julian supposed that he could find another X-Man to run it. Then again, he could set up the entire thing himself. After all, how hard could it be to run the Danger Room?

[Forge]

The kid was insistent; Forge would give him that much. He did, at least, seem to think over the warning for a second. Although, to be fair, if Julian wanted to head in immediately, it probably wouldn't be all that terrifying. Whatever Forge put him up against right now wouldn't be catered to his fears and insecurities, it would be a fairly routine scenario. Probably nothing that would give the kid nightmares for a month. Although that in itself was slightly disappointing, he wasn't sure he wanted to see how much of a twit Julian could be when he was sleep-deprived. Worse, Frosty might decide to be upset if one of her favorites was traumatized.

Hmm. Forge was pretty sure he knew just the scenario, too. It was meant for a small team of students working together, but the kid seemed confident that he could handle things on his own. Wait, no. Better idea. He'd pair Julian with an AI partner for the course, to help him along and watch his back. That would reduce some of the danger, and probably drive the boy nuts in the process. So really, it was a win-win.

“Your funeral,” Forge replied, shrugging. It was a figure of speech, of course; no matter how much he disliked the kid, he wasn't about to let him get killed. Or seriously injured, for that matter. A little roughing up was fine, though. Completely fine. He could think of a few students and teachers who would love to see Julian a little bruised. “Well, I'm not too busy at the moment. You want to go now, or d' you need some time?”

The prototype he was working on could wait. It wasn't every day that Forge got a free pass to terrify one of the most annoying people at the institute, after all.

[Hellion]

”As some people say, there is no time like the present,” responded Julian to Forge’s question. After all, it wasn’t like either one of them was getting any younger, and it wasn’t like it would be a good idea for him to wait for Forge to finish whatever he was working on. For all he knew, the machine could blow up in the guy’s face, and then he would have to go and find someone else to run his Danger Room session. Oh, Julian supposed he would be expected to lift the guy to the infirmary as well, but that wasn’t really that significant to his immediate plans.

With all of this ‘impending doom’ and ‘traumatizing talk’, the young telekinetic wondered just what his instructor had in mind for this training session, but he supposed that there was no point in asking. Half of the time, the staff kept any surprises from the students to keep them on their toes, so Julian figured that it would be the same for this situation. He also came to the conclusion that if Forge told him what he was going to go through then he would have time to prepare himself for it.

With all of these thoughts in mind, Julian knew that he had to say something just to keep everything from going completely silent on him. ”Seeing as how you are the one in charge, shall you take the lead?” Mainly, he asked this question since it wasn’t likely he was going to be getting into any room without the passcode or breaking something, and the latter didn’t seem like a good way to start this little interaction off. That might lead to him getting a smack down from the Brotherhood or evil versions of the X-Men, which would be challenging and also very painful for him.

[Emma Frost]

Oh, how obvious and desperate. Emma didn't even need to read their minds, their body language spoke lots, besides, those two weren't known to be getting on the best of terms, like her with many of the other grown ups, though at least their dynamic wasn't as tense as before and they were on neutral.

Reflecting on it, she wondered if she will have to intervene, Forge wasn't subtle on letting her know that Julian was a brat and she let him off the hook to easily. And while it was somewhat true, she also had to deal with Julian's attitude more often than she would like, it creepily looked like a mother/son dysfunctional relationship, so maybe she'll have to do something about it.

Right now, she decided that she'd just watch. Part of the life on the Institute was that everyone sooner or later ended working closely with people that they either loved or hated, but they had to put feelings aside for the sake of the mission, though once in a while it was nice to rile them up, like how Kitty got her panties on a twist every time they had to be teammates.

Smiling, she folded her arms above her chest, and followed them at a distance. She will observe and leave them to their own devices, though she'll have to do some brain tweaking in case they started the slap fight.

[Forge]

Impatient, wasn't he? Still, it was time to get this show on the road. Forge snorted, but stepped out of his workshop. He closed it up behind him, minus the blast doors, and strolled into the subbasement's hallway. “All right then” he replied, “But you know, there's probably better ways to convince everyone that you're X-Man material. It isn't all about being able to take care of yourself in a fight.” It was probably useless to try suggesting that Julian be less...teenager-ish, but maybe something would get through. Maybe the kid would get his head out of his ass one of these days. Forge was an optimist.

Juilan's next question was entertaining, and the corner of Forge's mouth twitched upward. Of course he'd be leading; there were two different security checks in between them and the Danger Room. If Julian had figured out a way to break into it, Forge was pretty sure he wouldn't be asking permission to try it out. The kid wasn't exactly known for his respect of rules, after all. He was more along the lines of begging forgiveness than asking permission. Well, 'begging' was a strong word. This was Julian, after all. He'd probably blame it on his swag, or whatever it was these days that kids were saying.

Not waiting for the kid—it wasn't like he could manage to get lost down here—Forge made his way to the first checkpoint, knelt slightly for the retinal scan, and opened up the doors. He was trying to figure out exactly what to punish Julian with, and he was pretty sure that he'd come up with something suitable.

[Hellion]

As Forge led him on, Julian was continuing to wonder what the training session was going to be like, and he was sure that it would be too easy. Forge didn’t seem like someone who would come up with anything that was really difficult, and he bet that the stories were all rumors started by the X-Men’s tech guy to intimidate the students into not asking the man to run the sessions. Yeah, that was definitely how it had probably begun, and Julian wasn’t someone that was intimidated by anything including such grade school talk.

”This isn’t just about proving I am good in a fight. Danger Room sessions are about knowing how to use your powers and skills in creative ways in order to accomplish an objective, and most of the people here think that I am just some overconfident, rich kid who talks a big game but won’t be able to cut it when things start to go down. I aim to prove them wrong,” responded Julian. It might not be the exact response that Forge had been expecting, but it was the only one that the X-Man was going to get from Julian on the matter of why he was doing this.

When they reached the doors, Julian watched as Forge let it scan his eye, and then the doors opened themselves. He made a mental note about it as it meant that one had to be programmed to access the room, but he wondered if he could force the doors open telekinetically. ”Now the fun begins, right?”