There were days at which Rogue would get up, energised up to the brim (in a manner of speaking, of course, since she didn't really wear hats a lot) and feeling as if she were able to take on anything and anyone. On those days, she could often be seen heading over to the Danger Room for a spontaneous training session, whose only real purpose was having some fun of the good old smashing strangely solid holographic fiends variety. Nothing bad about that.

And then there were days like today. The other days. As a matter of fact, they formed the majority, and involved a lot of mumbled or grunted complaints, her hair standing up in a way that made her look like someone from an 80s revival punk band (and a bad one at that) and her drive being that of, say, a chunk of cheese. In a particularly cold fridge.

Unless there was an early team meeting or any other pressing reason why people should see her at what constituted as a stupid time in her mind (meaning everything before 10 am), Rogue liked to avoid being seen like that. However, among the students there were wild stories of a dangerous beast lurking in the community kitchen and growling at anyone daring to empty the coffee can in its presence. In short: she was not an early riser.

The reason why Rogue found herself in the Danger Room at 8 o'clock sharp that Thursday was a promise she had made in a moment of weakness. Actually, if asked, she would claim she had been severely drunk and cruelly taken advantage of. In truth, her friend Ororo just had a way of asking or suggesting things that made it impossible for the southern belle to object strongly enough to count as opposition.

Storm, of course, was usually up and about upon sunrise, making 8 o'clock a very reasonable time to meet up. Over the past twenty or so years, she had repeatedly made attempts to convince Rogue of the error of her sleeping-in ways. Fruitlessly, naturally. With all the teams training in the Danger Room, its being booked out at the more convenient times for months ahead and the fact that the relatively long calm they had had meant there would be hell of a storm soon (no pun intended), however, there were good reasons to test some of the new strategies they had come up with over the past weeks, and test them sooner rather than later.

The brainstorming process having been as it had, they weren't sure who had originally come up with the idea, but that wasn't of any importance anyway. The plan was to find ways of combining powers to achieve greater effects and surprise the enemy. Jean and Scott, their telepathic bond arguably stronger and more immediate than that of anyone else at the Institute, had already a history of spectacular power combos, but that wasn't enough. The goal was to find as many harmonising combinations as possible to make team work more effective and teams themselves more powerful.

After three hours of exhausting but quite successful training, Rogue was almost relieved when her friend announced she had to leave and prepare a team meeting. Her superhuman strength made the special metal gloves the southern belle had been wearing a negligible thing to carry, but the constant crackling of electrical energy charging them was slightly nerve- and hair-wrecking. Storm hadn't missed very often, maybe once every forty attempts, but over the course of three hours, that were a lot of lightning bolts to be hit with. By the time they parted, Rogue would have made a fine Cher impersonator, but at least they had found a way of reducing the miss chance to nigh zero.

When Spike entered the Danger Room, she was just in the middle of a personal favourite of hers that she used to "stretch and relax a little" to put it in her own words. The scenario involved a mall, old-fashioned Sentinels breaking through walls at random and surprisingly stupid by-standers. Jubilee had helped programming it years and years ago, using her memory of the day when she had first encountered the X-Men as the basis for what had been a living nightmare for her back then.

Compared to the models that had followed, the first and second series were ridiculously easy to take out. The AI was slow and easily fooled if you knew how it operated, the attacks no match for someone who could fly at multiple sonic speed, and the laser a joke. It hadn't always been like that of course. Around twenty years ago, the Sentinels had been a serious threat. But if there is one thing one can count on, it's that things change. To Rogue, it seemed like from another life that politicians had been openly anti-mutant in their speeches, that they had been hunted down with the public turning a blind eye at best. She hadn't forgotten though, and never would. Their situation had certainly improved by now, but it was far from perfect. Maybe it would never be...

A well-aimed punch literally shattered the Sentinel on Rogue's right and she was just about to finish off another one that had smashed the wall in front of her by walking right through it, when she heard a familiar voice. "Spike?" She spun around, perplexed. Danger Room scenarios were often like dreams, perfect illusions that made intrusions of something from the real world seem strangely out of place. "Wha-ouch!" A giant fist had collided with her back, knocking her over and sending her slithering across the debris-littered ground to right in front of the vampire's feet.

"One sec, gotta return'em to the manufacturer for misbehaviour," she replied, grinning up at him with a slightly sheepish expression. From her lying position, she leapt into the air and - fists first - smashed in and through the robots centre. It was only then that she ordered Cerebro to end the programme. "What can I do for ya, sugah?" Hands resting on her hips, she looked at him with amused curiosity. He looked so very out of place, it could only be called cute. And that alone was a funny thing seeing as Spike, the vampire, wasn't exactly a fluffy puppy. Well...at least not in the traditional sense.