30 January

Mist. –n.1. a cloudlike aggregation of minute globules of water suspended in the atmosphere at or near the earth's surface, reducing visibility to a lesser degree than fog 2. a cloud of particles resembling this 3. something that dis, obscures, or blurs 4. a haze before the eyes that dims the vision 5. a suspension of liquid in a gas 6. a drink of liquor served over cracked ice 7. a fine spray produced by a vaporizer to add moisture to the air for breathing –v. 8. to become misty 9. to rain in very fine drops; drizzle 10. to spray with a finely diffused jet of water, as a means of replacing lost moisture

"Oh mah God, what is this?" Rogue asked in a rush. As soon as the Danger Room's imagery materialized around the two teams, she knew that they were in for an intense workout. They stood at an angle to what looked like a massive obstacle course. A rocky wall stood at the forefront of the course, leading to what looked like a rough mockery of monkey bars, to a pristine grass field. The field wasn't particularly long and could probably be crossed in a couple seconds, assuming Rogue and the others would have enough stamina after climbing the sheer rock wall. The field dumped into an abyss with what looked like a couple shaky tree trunks providing the only way across. That was the end of the course, but the vertical climb was enough to scare Rogue.

"This is our training exercise for the day," Ororo informed her. Rogue's question was rhetorical, but her answer wasn't unappreciated.

"What is wrong, Rogue?" Kurt taunted. "I think it looks easy."

"Says the monkey," Ally shot back.

"I am not a monkey!"

"She's jus' admittin' defeat already," Remy assured his team leader.

Ororo pursed her lips for a moment before describing the situation. "Each member of each team will be going through this course four times: two from the wall to the ditch, and two from the ditch to the wall. We will treat this is a tag team so that only one member of each team is running through the obstacles at the same time. With each successful completion, the visibility will be reduced with a light mist to heavy fog. One team will win. No powers. Anyone to use their powers has bathroom cleaning duty for the month." She turned to her three teammates in particular. "Are you ready?"

"As I'll ever be, lass," Sean assured her. "Is this a bet with Kurt?"

She smiled. "No, of course not."

"How do you expect us to climb that wall?" Ally asked. She gestured toward it with sharp movements. "Kurt has an unfair advantage, being able to stick to walls and all."

"I said that no powers may be used," Ororo told her simply. She turned to lead the teams to the starting position.

"I don't think Kurt can just turn off his sticky," Ally muttered.

"Too bad you can' jus' turn off yer mouth," Remy shot back.

Bobby giggled behind them. "Ouch."

"Ah've never been able t' do a pull-up before," Rogue murmured more to herself than anyone. "Ah hope Ah don't let y'all down."

Betsy pulled up next to her as they walked. "Try your best. You'll be able to find footholds in the crevices between rocks to help pull yourself up. It won't just be upper body strength. This course looks like it's designed to use the entire body: arms, legs, and core. It's short, but well thought out."

Rogue offered her a weak smile. "Thanks."

"You'll be fine."

"No talking to the enemy!" Bobby called out to her.

Rogue wasn't the first to go, but she was the second. Ororo sent her and Sean to the opposite side of the course, where they could be tagged to start their turn. Bobby and Betsy were there for Kurt's team. Rogue watched in mounting anticipating as Ororo made her way through the course, even though she couldn't see the weather witch's ascent up the wall. As expected, she wasn't the first to make it over the stone, but she followed quickly after the scurrying blue mutant. Her movements were erratic rather than a dead spring across the field, but her balance rivaled even Kurt's across the bridge. She slapped Rogue's hand without even a hitch in her breath.

Rogue was much slower to navigate the tree bridge, but to her defense, so was Bobby. She actually managed to reach the end of the tree at the same time as Bobby, completely negating the lead Kurt had built up. With two steps in the field, however, she gave up the possible photo finish by falling straight down. In the blink of an eye, Rogue went from seeing the stone wall she had to climb to seeing absolute darkness. Apparently the field was riddled with trap holes covered in a substance that eerily matched the grass around them.

"Are you kiddin' me?" Rogue shouted at nothing in particular once she gathered her wits about her. Did she have to climb out?

Rogue fumbled around the hole with her hands, eventually grabbing hold of what she dearly hoped was a tree root poking out of the hole. Putting her entire weight on it, she braced her back against the other side of the hole to climb out. Struggling, she managed to get her elbows over the edge, which she used to worm herself completely up and out. Bobby was nowhere to be seen.

"Are you alright?" Ororo called out to her.

"Peachy," Rogue spat. She regained her footing and restarted her sprint, broken as Ororo's path as she dodged what she could see as holes now.

Betsy was right; the stone wall had a lot of gaps and grips to hold on to so that Rogue could climb the wall. She felt like her grip was shaking at best, and after falling from a couple feet up with her gloves slipping against her finger, she took them off to try again. The best she could do was jam her toes into the gaps as much as possible to support her weight. By the time she reached the top, her arms were screaming at her.

Once she reached the top of the wall, however, she was faced with a conundrum. How would she cross the monkey bar-like maze of wood? Betsy dropped down from the wall and used the wood like a kid would monkey bars, quickly reaching the halfway point to tag the last team member into motion. Rogue decided to do the same, despite her arms already protesting their use. She was more than happy to pull herself back up to the second wall and make the ten foot drop to tag Alison into motion.

The two girls clapped hands, and Ally was off. Rogue did everything within her will to keep from plopping on the ground in a puff of heavy breathing. She pulled her gloves from where she stuffed them after taking them off to throw them on the ground. They wouldn't be doing her a lot of good in this course.

"Where'd you go?" Bobby asked her.

"A hole," Rogue panted. "Ah didn't see it." Bobby snorted. "Shut up," Rogue grumbled.