Jack, being used to checking on small details at the speed of sound, was rather excited about the prospect of this whole race. He was already a track star in school before he got his powers, and he was always the most adventurous on the cross country team. So, with his wind back, he was preparing himself mentally to win. Until Violet fell, however. His competitive mindset made him block things out, and his hand wasn't fast enough to catch hers as she made her fall. He saw her pop her hand back into place and grimaced, worried more for her than the damn bathrooms.that moment of hesitation cost him a bit of ground. Seeing her take off, he realized that he was about to put himself in a bad spot. Jack took off at full speed, remembering that his training wasn't all superpowers. He began to do what a speedster does best: think on his feet. If I can dodge things moving at super speed by seeing it, he'll have to dodge ahead of time. He started to duck and weave as he moved, dodging the shots and taking care not to trip up. Never stopping his feet, Jack was careful to keep an eye ahead, ready for the next obstacle. He leapfrogged across the pool, then continued to hop the ledge as he carefully gripped each handhold, closing his distance between the front runners as fast as possible, making sure not to miss a beat. He was reasonably confident he would score in the top, but some of the others here looked pretty ready and capable. Keeping his thoughts to himself, Jack cleared the pit and made a lot of ground. Next, the hall. All of the electric poles didn't frighten Jack too badly. He was used to dodging between obstructions well enough, although there were more than enough close calls as he weaved around them to leave his hair standing on end. "I guess being a bit behind isn't all bad..." Jack muttered as he eyed the next obstacle. Now that he'd know better than to fall, Jack planned his movements ahead of time, always keeping his eyes on the next panel. "It's a good thing that my powers don't include smarts." He'd say again quietly. Clearing the panels cleanly and feeling pretty good about it, he couldn't help but wonder how much more he would have to do. The turrets couldn't keep up with him at this rate, focusing on easier to hit targets, and the rest of the obstacles seemed... commonplace for a course. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't even sure what place he was in as he hit the final room. Thinking quickly, he decided that hesitation would be the end of him and thanked his lucky stars as he began to move through the water. His costume was a frictionless material, which minimized all resistance and made sure it wouldn't tear off and leave him naked at super speeds. It was also waterproof. This gave Jack a definite advantage as he began to weave brought the nets and pits, continually dipping and even hitting the water to make sure he wasn't shot. While he did have a better chance with the reduced water drag, it didn't stop him from taking some heavy hits from the rubber bullets, slowing him down more than he wanted. He had to lt something hit him though, to allow time to dodge those nasty nets and whatever the other things were, he didn't have time to think about it. Whatever the cost, Jack trudged forward, hoping that Violet was near and all right...

Jami pulled herself up, slowing down as she neared the pool. "I really wanna go swimming right now." she muttered, but she grabbed onto a ledge and started slowly making her way across the body of water.

Ryan quickly rushed past almost everyone as he butted some people out of the way with his superior physical prowess. If a bullet hit him he shrugged off the pain relatively easily as he had been hit by much deadlier things. He jumped over the pit and began running again. He grabbed the ledge and began inching over the pool with a look of intense concentration on his face. He came to the hallway of electric poles and sighed. "You've got to be kidding me." He ran through the hallway as he ducked under poles, jumped over them, and even landed from a jump and had to roll under another pole. All the while he passed students who struggled without powers. He came to the platforms and nearly screamed in frusturation. He began jumping across platforms with speed and precision. He nearly fell of some platforms but caught himself before he fell. He made it to the rock wall and punched it. 'This is BS, even for me.' He thought with an angry expression. He made it to the rock wall and began climbing as he began sweating and swearing heavily. This had been one of the hardest obstacle courses he had done ever. There was someone in his way and he attempted to push her off so he could get ahead of her.

Violet is right behind Shane the entire way, copying his every move. Only when he gets caught by the net does she avoid it and continue on ahead. She grins at him as she swims passed, and gracefully dodges the hail of bullets. "I ran on tightropes when I was younger, dude," she yells back to him. "You can't beat me on this." She makes it all the way across, only tripping up once and getting hit by bullets twice. She lands on the other side and gives him a wave with her fingers. She gets to the rock wall and begins to climb. She leaps from rock to rock, but she knows she won't be in the lead long. If she was still in the lead.

Having just made it past the ledge portion of the obstacle course, Dimitri found himself entertaining the thought that the worst of the course was now behind him. This was a pipe dream, one that was instantly shattered upon entering the pole filled hallway and learning the hard way just what was so important about the poles. Weaving his way through the remainder of the room, Dimitri fought to stifle a stream of curses as his right arm dangled uselessly thanks to a careless run in with one of the poles. Dimitri may have been a nice guy at heart, but even the nicest of people had their limits, and his just so happened to be when he lost the functionality of his limbs. The cyborg skidded to a stop as he noticed the floor change from one solid mass to a series of tiles ahead of him, his blank expression giving way to one of puzzlement for a few moments as he surveyed the area before him. "*O...k...what's this thing's deal?*" Dimitri mused, torn between caution and the desire to move forward before more people overtook him. He glanced around for a bit, then hesitantly stepped onto one of the tiles, only to jump back as the tile head of the one he'd stepped on fell away. This was going to be tricky, there was no telling what sort of pattern these things were going to fall in, meaning he couldn't just bulldoze his way through haplessly. Dimitri slowly stepped onto the tile again, muttering indignantly under his breath as a third tile fell away to his left. He suddenly recalled a game from his childhood, hopscotch was it's name if he remembered it properly. The cyborg took a deep breath, crouched, and jumped for a tile to his left. He found himself landing on a line between tiles, then found himself stifling a yelp of surprise as the tile beneath his heel gave way, leaving him teetering on an edge. Dimitri waved his functioning arm for a few moments as he fought to stay balanced, then in a moment of brilliance he began to rotate his upper body in a semicircular manner, ever so slightly leaning back, then wiping around forward as quick as he could to push most of his mass forward. The move worked, however Dimitri nearly lost his balance again. "**Alright, not like hopscotch! Not like hopscotch!**" He hissed as he righted himself. With three tiles splayed out directly ahead of him, Dimitri found himself having to make a choice. Or rather, he would have had something not occurred to him. Dimitri crouched and banged on the tile ahead and to his left which caused it to fall, he then repeated the process with the right, producing the same result, then lastly, Dimitri banged on the one dead ahead. When the tile did not move, Dimitri smirked and crawled onto the tile before repeating the process with the next three ahead of him. The process would be lengthy, but now that Dimitri knew what the margin for error would be he could afford to take a bit of time to ensure that the route he took was safe.

> The turrents now began firing, Ariella that was when she began to use her athletic skills, trying to dodge each attack by the turrent. "Oh..God. I swear, I thought this day was gonna be a little fun. And I had to wear shorts today." she said thinking to herself while still making her way to the finish line, TRYING to win that is. Jumping and jumping on each tile that she sees to get over there faster, but that was when she tripped and fell on the ground. Yup, she lost the race. It hurt a bit too! It looked like most of the students had started. Seeing that he was behind a fair few of them James didn't see much point in pushing too hard to get to the end. In fact this was a better opportunity to do something that most probably wouldn't. Catching up to Ariella he grabbed her arm and helped her back to her feet. "Can't let a little fall slow you down." Fairly sure she was steady he continued on. Would he regret helping? Probably not. Being competitive was not one of his natural tendencies. Not having enough time to try and figure out the wall he was just going to have to chance it. After several close calls he made it past the pool and on to the electric poles in the hallway. This probably would suck if you had just fallen into the water and got shocked. Either way he managed to get through only getting shocked once. That was good enough he supposed. He got to some tiles and started stepping as others ahead of him fell away. Lightly tapping adjacent and forward tiles a route took shape as he advanced. Confident that the course wouldn't leave him with no options he made a dash to get past the panels. One dropped in front of him that he didn't expect and he had to make a desperate leap to the next. He landed on his hands and knees harder than he would have liked and paused a moment to shake it off. Good, looked like one last thing was left. Coming to the doorway he saw the strobing lights and cause brief glimpses of what was happening. "Oh fun."

Jack would be hard pressed, but after a lot of shots and some trip ups, he would finally make it to the rock wall. He realized that he was still behind a few people, and had to make the most of his movements. He scanned the wall quickly for the best path and began rushing up like a spider, clinging to each hold only long enough to make it to another and practically leaping up the face with each push of his feet. He never looked down as he continued to push forward, being sure to move past anyone that was in his way by skirting around them as quickly as he could. He could see Violet on the wall climbing fine, and his resolve kicked up a bit higher. With more push, he continued to scale the wall.

"**Finally!**" Dimitri barked as he leapt from the final tile onto solid ground once more, having given up the machine persona on the basis that it was too difficult to keep up while focusing on the course. With just on more obstacle and a few students in his path, Dimitri went into a full on sprint for the home stretch. There was a pounding in Dimitri's head as his vision tunneled, he could feel adrenaline pumping through his mechanical heart, his legs moved relentlessly like pistons, pumping back and forth, carrying him past his opponents and to the final obstacle. With a bunching of the legs, Dimitri launched himself up and onto the rock wall, remarkably without causing injury to himself given the sprint that he transitioned out of. His climb was impeded slightly by having one arm out of commission, however Dimitri still had three tireless prosthetics that powered him over the wall, and finally past the finish line. "**WHOO! Alright, high five guys!**" Dimitri gasped with a goofy grin as he stood and raised his hand, only to lower it when he was met with silence. "**I...I was the first across? R-Really? No one's funnin' me? I won!? I won!**", Dimitri cheered raising his fist triumphantly as he reveled in the knowledge that he'd done well.

Violet pushes herself the rest of the way up, but she's too late. Dimitri crosses the finish line before she does and she sighs, running a hand through her hair. "At least I got second," she murmurs, standing quietly next to him as she waits for the others. She wishes that she had gotten first, but she is happy for Dimitri and didn't care if she got second. Besides, she only got second by a couple of seconds. She twists her wrist slightly, cringing. And she managed to get second with a hurt wrist.

Ariella actually stopped running since she fell and hurt her knee but she managed to see the other students still running for the finish line. AND Dimitri was the first one, congratulations to him! Ariella stood up from the ground as she walked towards the other students wincing with pain brought to her knee. It wasn't a big problem but it di hurt a bit. But she was still to congratulate Dimitri. "Congratulations! You did really good so you deserve the win!" Ariella smiled and now began to clap as she stepped aside from the finish line, watching the others run. Ariella didn't even feel like crossing the finish line. She just congratulated Dimitri and went to sit down on the bleachers.

Jack was mere seconds behind as he saw Dimitri cross, with Violet right in front of him and her challenger not far behind. He shot forward to claim second, lost it to Violet and claimed third. He immediately went over to her. "Are you okay? How's your wrist?" He sounded pretty genuinely worried.

Exiting the strobe lit room revealed a bruised and soaked Shane. A net was still caught around his foot and another on his shoulder. "God...dammit", he grunted as he looked up the rock wall to see Dimitri, Jack, and Shadow already at the finish line. However he wasn't so much disappointed but satisfied. Throughout all this he had learned many things about himself and his classmates. He'd learned that without his abilities he was lacking somewhat the stealth and finesse he once had first starting out as a thief. This would be his goal during his time at the academy. He also learned that Shadow would prove to be a valuable ally or an annoyance for what he had planned. She was the onto person-as far as he knew-who could sense the Rift in him. If she had knowledge of it she perhaps she'd be willing to share...or use it against him should their paths cross in the future. Shaking himself from his thoughts, Shane continued on to climb the rock wall. He wasnt going to leave this course incomplete that was for sure. He struggled to climb the wall, due to his injuries, and after a few slips and close calls managed to ascend to the top to find a celebrating Dimitri along with Jack and Shadow. "Not bad Tin-man, I thought I'd win this won but looks like it's yours. Same to you Shadow, maybe you've got me beat in the obstacle course department but what about a little sparring later?"

As some of the other students began making their way over the ledge of the final obstacle, Dimitri went to congratulate them on a good run. However, before he got the opportunity to speak, two of them congratulated him first, prompting a somewhat sheepish chuckle from him. "**Thanks for the props, you guys did great yourselves. Almost left me in the dust a few times.**" Dimitri stated with a polite nod to the others. Surveying the remaining runners on the course, Dimitri walked over to the edge of the rock wall, crouched, and extended his functioning hand down to assist whomever was next as a show of good sport.

Molly had finally made her way to the pool obstacle, and quickly set to work on traversing the walls with as much grace and skill as she could muster after being pelted with all manner of foreign objects and high-speed projectiles that she could manage for one day. She shimmied and shimmied carefully, taking care to look around and avoid any traps that may or may not have been lurking in unsavory places as she moved along the wall. Each ledge, each step up and step down only added a log of lumber to the fire that burned within her muscles and within her soul. She didn't even care whether or not she finished first any more, only that she finished at all. It wasn't a competition, it was survival. Sure everyone would probably finish eventually, but where is the fun in thinking that? A few more ledges scale and traversed, and she had reached the next obstacle in her way. And boy oh boy was it really in her way. Multiple horizontal and vertical poles moved in sporadic patterns across a hallway, as if they were intended to be surpassed. _'Simple enough,'_ thought Molly, _'Nothing that Madame Smash can't handle.'_ She thumbed at her chest as she thought to herself, face high and mighty. It lasted about two seconds as she saw the poles light up with crackling electricity. Her face and shoulders all dropped in one instant, her former enthusiasm all but gone. Though with a few yelps and squeals, she made her way through, resolving to crawl along the floor with the occasional leap like a frog. The tiles obstacle passed without much incident, being as most people had passed them already. The robot was alright as well, as she managed to slip past it undetected due to the distractions of the other contestants. When she reached the finish line, she collapsed beneath her own weight, panting for breath. "God -- Damn it... too slow. Started at a -- disadvantage. No underdog champ rising to the top today.

> Ariella actually stopped running since she fell and hurt her knee but she managed to see the other students still running for the finish line. AND Dimitri was the first one, congratulations to him! Ariella stood up from the ground as she walked towards the other students wincing with pain brought to her knee. It wasn't a big problem but it di hurt a bit. But she was still to congratulate Dimitri. "Congratulations! You did really good so you deserve the win!" Ariella smiled and now began to clap as she stepped aside from the finish line, watching the others run. Ariella didn't even feel like crossing the finish line. She just congratulated Dimitri and went to sit down on the bleachers. James was working his way up the wall when he spotted the hand Dimitri offered. A slightly surprised laugh escaped his mouth and he smiled. "Good to see I'm not the only one trying to help." Taking the hand he made it in 6th. A pleasant surprise really. From the top he spotted Ariella headed to the bleachers. Curious he made his way down leaving the other. Her walk was kind of off meaning she was probably hurting. "Are you alright?"

Ryan made it up and began cursing heavily when he saw everyone that made it ahead of him. 'How could I lose! I need to train harder.' He thought with an angry expression on his face. He walked away from everyone and began thinking of how to become stronger. He watched them smile and laugh with each other, as if all was well in the world. 'They think they're better than me. They think I'm weird, insane even. I know they do. I'll show them all.' He brooded away from everyone else as he thought of what he would do next.

> Jack was mere seconds behind as he saw Dimitri cross, with Violet right in front of him and her challenger not far behind. He shot forward to claim second, lost it to Violet and claimed third. He immediately went over to her. "Are you okay? How's your wrist?" He sounded pretty genuinely worried. Violet rolls her eyes and jerks away from him, rubbing her still sore wrist. "I'm fine. Don't worry about me." She thought it was cute that he sounds like a concerned boyfriend, but she really didn't not need to be bumped into or jostled around. "I just dislocated my wrist is all."

Jack rolls his eyes in response. "I just dislocated my wrist is all." He mocks sarcastically. Smiling, he would shake his head. "Just making sure." His smile would fade a bit. "I'm really sorry I didn't catch you. I just wasn't fast enough..." He would say with a bit of regret. He really felt useless when it happened, and it bothered him greatly.

> > James was working his way up the wall when he spotted the hand Dimitri offered. A slightly surprised laugh escaped his mouth and he smiled. "Good to see I'm not the only one trying to help." Taking the hand he made it in 6th. A pleasant surprise really. From the top he spotted Ariella headed to the bleachers. Curious he made his way down leaving the other. Her walk was kind of off meaning she was probably hurting. "Are you alright?" Ariella sat down on the bleacher as she rubbed her knee, looking around trying to see how she could get out of here but the only way out is with the professor actually telling them to leave. Besides, if she left.. where would she go exactly? As she rubbed her knee, her eyes turned to a guy, James. Who walked up to her and asked if she was alright. Her face suddenly turned a bit red, from embarrassment and she got a little nervous. But managed to speak of course. "I'm fine.. just I hurt my knee. But I will live. It does hurt a bit though, but again.. I'm fine.. I kinda decided to sit out the race since.. I knew, I wasn't going to make it in the first place. Well.. I tried.. running but I fell..." and she talked, something that happens a lot when she gets nervous. Ariella smiled at James. "Don't worry.. I'm fine.." she nodded speaking the truth. The pain was probably going to fade away later on. "Oh and congratulations for at least making it to the finish line." Ariella said happily as she stopped rubbing her knee and stood up slowly. It was probably time to go?

> Jack rolls his eyes in response. "I just dislocated my wrist is all." He mocks sarcastically. Smiling, he would shake his head. "Just making sure." His smile would fade a bit. "I'm really sorry I didn't catch you. I just wasn't fast enough..." He would say with a bit of regret. He really felt useless when it happened, and it bothered him greatly. Violet smiles and touches his shoulder gently. "Don't worry, _mon ami_, even with your powers you may not have been fast enough. I'm fine. It's not like I'm dead." She grins around and turns her now slightly swollen wrist. "I'll be better in a little bit."