"I'm very happy to hold onto you. You're fascinating!" 

He stands, and looks around the room.

"Heh. Thanks."

It hasn't really changed in blandness. The door to his right remains ripped off its hinges, the door head open, and the door behind closed, and the darkness down them is unrelieved.

"The glow sometimes shifts as people walk," Sara comments, "But I can glow, too, if we need more light."

"Do we take the open door, the broken door, the closed door, or the enveloping darkness?"

He taps his chin thoughtfully with his free hand.

"We came through the broken door - there was an adventure there - and he left through the open door, so the center's either through the open or closed. Not sure which, but since he failed I wouldn't be surprised if 'closed' is a better path. But it's less likely to have been cleared."

"Or if you want to get out, the broken door leads back to the entrance."

Well, good to know that the entrance was an option, however the scientist in him has taken on a side role as an explorer. "I'm willing to delve deeper into this maze filled with creatures. Call me curious."

He turns to the closed door. "Let's try this one."

She sort of clicks and hums. "Ready when you are. Now, fighting's a group effort - I can't wield myself. Usually with a weapon making a 'use' gesture and then thinking what you want to happen works. Like, point me at monster, think 'I want them anesthetized.' Dramatic flourishes sometimes help, kind of depends on your personality."

"Oooh, flourishing sounds like fun. I do like a dramatic entrance."

He looks to a blank space of wall. "Any chance of a practice?"

"Fire away!"

He points Sara at the wall, and thinks very hard to fire at it.

Sara glows, shimmers, and a bubbly beam of light shoots from her muzzle. The wall is unmarked but presumably thoroughly anesthetized. 

"Take that, wall!"

She laughs.

"Want to practice a bit more, see if you can get some oomph in?" she asks.

Tadashi considers the wall. "Yeah, lets try and dial it up."

He aims, and concentrates.

She also helps nudge him through stuff that's worked in the past - dynamism helps, usually, though a coherent aesthetic helps more if his thing is standing resolute.

They're able to produce a shinier blast this time. The visual effects seem to have been dialed up, at least.

He thinks of his best friends, and their clear colour pallets, and delights in switching between them. The last blast is red and purple, for his little brother.

Thinking about people he likes and doing their palettes gets more oomph - and according to Sara, the edges of different effects.

His brother's palette makes a light so bright it leaves spots floating across his vision.

Sara whistles in his mind. "Impressive," she says. "You're thinking about people, right? Maybe you can tell me about them? Getting to know each other helps with this a lot, and people's friends are a big part of that."

"Ah, yeah. Thinking about my friends and family back home. My friends work in the same lab I do." He starts telling stories about each of them, before finally getting to the last one. "...and my brother, Hiro. He's...Sara, he's the smartest guy in the world. He's gonna do so much good. His robotics- well. I guess when I get home I'll know for sure, but he just invented some crazy tech that's gonna get him into the university. At fourteen!"

"Okay, that's amazing. You guys sound like a pretty awesome group. I'm doing online classes - easier when 'getting dropped in a dunj' is a risk - and I've been doing some mechanical engineering and some art."

"I don't think I quite have another power yet - that usually takes a lot of practice, though - but the beams have kind of flavors?"

"Mechanical engineering would be very useful for someone who can turn themselves into a gun. And I'm guessing you don't mean flavours as in tastes, as fun as it would be to try and taste a laser beam."

"Heh, no. Flavors like metaphorically."

"So each beam has a different effect? Interesting. Neural transmitters are way more advanced in this world."

"They're not fully different yet, and it's hard to replicate that with pure technology, but yeah I suspect our weapons tech might be really divergent."

"I suppose that will be handy with all the different enemies we will be facing. It wouldn't do to just have one flavour of beam."

"Yeah, more powers always helps. You wanna practice some more, or set out?"

"Let's see how far we can go."

He makes for the closed door.