Author's Note: This chapter should have been longer, but it's a break in the monotony of the story so far, as the next couple of chapters are really long and fit together as a whole, I decided against making them longer and adding this little tid-bit onto the next chapter, and I LOVED the cliff- hanger at the end of Chapter 5, so I'm stuck with this little Chapter-ette. Enjoy, and let me know if my explanation of how the Danger Room works makes any sense. Was really hard to convey how I thought it should work, but I gave it a shot. (

Chapter 6

The cat stared at them for a while, slowly circling the group. Every once in a while it would snarl. The three of them stood side-by-side circling with the cat, trying to keep it in front of them. Xi and Ryan were on the outside with Angelo in the middle.

"I've got an idea." Ryan said. "We need to scare it, make it think we are bigger than it is. It works with bears..."

"Hey, amigo. I don't know if you realize this, but...THIS AIN'T A BEAR!" Angelo said in a voice above a whisper.

"It's worth a shot." Xi whispered.

"Ok, on three. One...Two..Three." And as Ryan reached three all three of them put their hands in the air and screamed at the top of their lungs and stepped toward the cat.

Just then, the cat sprung at Angelo who was standing in the middle. Ryan dove to the right and Xi dove left. Angelo to his credit, dove the only way he could. Straight up. He sprang straight into the air 20 feet and landed with the cat behind him. He spun around just as the cat did, and the cat shot a bare-fanged snarl his direction.

The cat winced as a rock dropped on his head. Angelo looked over and saw Xi picking up rocks off the ground and teleporting them over the cat's head.

"How in the." Angelo started to ask, but the cat sprung at him again. Thinking quick, Angelo sprung up to a tree branch above his head. He reached out for it, expecting his hands to go right through it. He was shocked when he grabbed a solid object. He hauled himself up onto the branch. All of a sudden the branch disappeared, and Angelo fell and landed on his feet. He looked around and realized that not just his branch had disappeared, but the whole reoom had reverted back to the original grid that it was not 5 minutes ago.

The main door slid open and Black walked in. He had a smile on his face. He crossed the room to where the kids were standing, brushing off dust that wasn't really there.

"So what do you think?" Black asked, "Pretty impressive, huh?"

"What..just happened?" Ryan asked.

"You just experienced something Forge called a Danger Room. It's a holographic simulation trainer that uses concentrated Force Fields to imitate solid objects. I just ran a test to see if it was working."

"So that's why you could teleport the rocks and I could climb up on the tree." Angelo said.

"Excactly, and your movement through the environments isn't affected by these four walls. When a program kicks in, a force field actually lifts you up off the ground about an inch. Think about an air-hockey puck on air. As you move, this force field moves with you. So technically, you could walk a hundred miles and never move an inch. The scenery is programmed to move with you so it seems like you are actually walking. If you come to a hill, or any other terrain change, the forcefield will shift to that type of terrain."

"So what if we decide to split up and go separate directions?" Xi asked.

"If you pass certain boundaries, the holographic simulation will put up a false wall between you and another person and this wall will make it seem to the both of you that you are moving apart. An illusion kinda like in a House of mirrors, where you will think someone is standing right next to you, but they are really far away, except opposite. Even your voices and noises you make will be dampened accordingly. It's the closest thing to real life that you can get, and it's your training facility." Black said smiling ear-to-ear. "Now let's go upstairs. Ashlyn and Jane have made up quite the feast. Hamburgers and hot-dogs for everyone."