Enraged was not a word to express the feeling the Riftman had for the individual it held in its hands. What's more his victim snarled back at him and released an even more powerful black of sound that caused the creature to throw Dimitri away as Violet's shadow rope began to tighten around his shoulders. The creature's gaze turned towards the girl and instead of flying towards her as he did Dimitri it remained hovering where it was. It's eyes locked onto her it would seem as though it was taking time to think of what to do. But it was a ruse, what it was really doing was getting a hold on her vial of shadows. The creature took hold of the necklace and turned it around, pulling hard with his telekinetic force it acted as a noose around her neck choking her with each tug.  Within the creature Shane was still himself. He was prisoner within his own body with no control of his actions all he could manage was think, "SHIT SHIT SHIT!" He fought hard to regain control of his body but it was futile, for at the moment whatever it was that he was at the moment had gained consciousness. "STOP!", he demanded whatever forces were causing him to hurt his fellow students but he received no reply...not an immediate one that it. It came without transition after a few moments. Shane no longer viewed the world through his Riftman eyes. Instead he was in a black room, if you can call it that, it was like he was floating in the black void of space. A voice, much like the voice he had when in Riftman form, spoke to him. "And why should I? Who are you to order me?", despite Shane demanding it to stop earlier he did not expect a reaction. "Wh-Who are you?", he asked still in shock upon the realization that he was mind linked with himself and...this thing. The creature revealed its form, it was much like him when in Riftman form. It answered, "Who I was is of no concern to you, who I will be is. I am the bridge between Aeta and the Revenati. I will cleanse this world of your Aeta filth and provide my people with a new home ruled by me as their god king. The old gods will see a Second Usurpation only this time it shall not end with our defeat but our transcendence to divinity!"  Shane could barely believe what he was hearing. This thing, whatever it was wanted to kill every single human on earth. For what? To play god?! He did not respond, how could he respond to something like that.  "I see your mind cannot comprehend this revelation. Let me speak in words you understand then. You are Aeta, the beings which my gods have decided to curse us with your image as a reminder of our blasphemy. An imperfect form of your kind we were given and so we were forever imperfect and could not become what we were destined to be. But now I have you, and with your body as my avatar I shall rise to godhood and spit in the eyes of the gods. My people will take this world from you and we will take our rightful place among the heavens"  With every word Shane grew angry. This thing, this abomination, sought to use him as some kind of missing piece in a puzzle to be god. "Hey asshole, hate to break it to ya but the only person using this body is me!", Shane fought as hard as he could to regain control of himself. He focused hard on the world outside of this black void. He thought about his life, Riya, and...Ariella? Whatever the reason for it, it seemed to be working. He vision was slowly beginning to change from the void and back to the real world. However the vision was fading in and out as the creature fought his resistance. "You fool you cannot hope to stop this, to stop me. In a moment your colleagues will be dead and I will march on this world and it will come to know the name of its god king, Malkaris!"  Ignoring him Shane continued to fight the Riftman's control. "Can't...let him...win!" Despite his efforts it could be some time before he regained his control. Time he did not have.

Violet's shadows disintegrate as the rope on her vial wraps tight around her neck. She gasps for air and tries to pull at the rope, but with each pull, it gets stronger around her neck. Black dots begin to spill across her vision and she gasps again. "Shane! Shane, help!" she gasps weakly at the monster. "Fight it!" The rope becomes tighter and it lifts her up higher into the air. Her feet leave the ground and she begins to scramble slightly. Her breaths become panicked and she tries more ferociously to pull at the rope. Her eyes turn to Jack. "Jack..."

Within seconds of being tossed away like a toy Dimitri hit the ground with a rather loud clang, his sound emitters shutting off abruptly as his concentration was broken. The cyborg slowly sat up, his adrenaline still pumping, but having for the most part regained his senses. "Ok...ow, felt my brain rattle with that one. What happened?", he groaned as he looked around. His vision was fuzzy for a bit, however the moment it cleared up, he immediately remembered what had transpired. The creature that had made him lose control was standing before him, now hanging Violet with her own necklace like some sort of miniature facsimile of a noose. Dimitri hopped to his feet and clenched his fists tightly. This thing terrified him, Dimitri felt no shame in acknowledging it, however despite his instincts screaming at him to flee, he couldn't bring himself to do so knowing what would happen to Violet. With a shout that caused his voice to crack a bit, Dimitri ran around the creature and jumped onto its back. "LET HER GO!", Dimitri screamed as he clapped both hands over where he assumed it's ears to be and unleashed an eighty dB sonic blast. Dimitri would have gone louder to cause some real pain, however with Violet so close, he opted instead to try and keep it at a level that would hopefully at least deter the creature.

Shane continued his efforts to break through when a sudden deafening sound hit him hard. He and the creature's scream was in sync and to everyone else watching Shane could be heard under the shrill shriek of the Riftman. Malkaris saw that Shane was close to breaking free of his control and used the Riftman's body to grab at Dimitri who was latched onto his back. However it diverted its attention from Violet and as a result released the necklace. "Do not fight this Aeta. You cannot stop the inevitable. You have no authority to deny a the will of a god!", controlling the Riftman, Malkaris managed to get a hold of Dimitri by the neck and was about to perform the same execution as the night he first joined Shane. To his surprise Shane spoke, "I have the only authority. This is my body you piece of shit!" Shane had broken through and as soon as he regained control of his body again he shifted out of rift form and collapsed onto the ground.

James could hear the hum as Dimitri started his attack. So far so good. He and Ryan continued up the hill on the platform he made. There were several things he could try once at the top His concentration was shattered when he heard the creature scream out. It sent shivers down is spine, a feeling he hadn't had since he was a child. What on Earth could that be? They moved a little further on the disk before it dropped to the floor. The sudden stop caused him to tumble a bit before he got back up. "This is not good." He was pretty close to the top so he headed there to get a vantage of what was happening. "What the hell is that?" Dimitri had already gotten on the things back and was blasting it again. "Crap." He started down the hill when the creature turned back into Shane who collapsed. "What..." He slowed down and waited to see what his teammates would do. If they were down for the count then it would just be the three of them left to defend. Speaking of which he checked where the rest of the opposing team was.

Jami was currently charging up the mountain with Bear, looking around for any of her teammates that needed help. "Crap. Wait no, they're fine, keep going!" she said to Bear as he stopped. "If we manage to defend from the top we can give our teammates time to get up." Bear nodded, laying down so Jami could get off. "I'm not gonna get off, silly. The only way I would is if I could've used my sewing needles. Come on, you can do it! I'll jump off if you need help."

Ryan ran up to the top with James and smiled widely. "Oh how exciting. I can't wait to see how this turns out." He then realized he was letting his emotional mask slip and composed himself. "What should we do?"

As Ariella and her team tried to go up the mountain. Something very mysterious and bad happened. Shane transformed into some kind of monster and it started to attack Dimitri and Violet. "Shane...." she said quietly but was worried and very terrified. She forgot about the race and quickly ran towards Shane seeing him collapsing on the ground. "I can't leave him like this." Hopefully the others in her team could do the game without her. Shane had to be taken care of right now. "Shane!" She yelled kneeling down besides him as she shook his body for him to wake up. "Come on, Shane! Get up please!" Ariella looked around hoping that someone could help but it seems that they were all concentrated on their game. Arilla looked back at Shane. "Come on...! Shane! Don't make me blow up the ground next to you and send you flying away!" She wasn't going to do that, ofcourse. But she may slap him in the face.

Bear charged on top of the hill, but he was going so fast he slid down the other side. "OH MY GOD. AVENGE ME!" Jami yelled to James and Ryan as Bear slid down the hill. Bear caught himself halfway down the hill, making strange whining noises as if he was a dog.

Molly witnessed through the terrible cacophony or cries and sound as her team slowly fell to shambles, with horrifying transformation and terrors beyond her comprehension topping her list of things she was prepared to deal with today. Her concentration shattered as she felt her nose become warm, something was dribbling down onto her lip and compelling her to slowly cut herself off of channelling her power. With a quick glance to the side, she saw Ariella crouched down next to Shane and rushed over to attempt to help. "Jee-zus, what happened to him? All I saw was him gettin' spooky and screamin'!" She ran a hand beneath her nose and paid no mind as her handwraps came back stained with dark red. She looked to Ariella with a bloody mustache smeared across her top lip. "Well, should we put him somewhere safe down at the bottom or bring him up to the top? We can't just leave him here."

Violet drops to the ground, gasping for air. She stays collapsed on the ground for a good few seconds before stumbling to her feet and pulling her vial down away from her face. She notices that there are some chairs nearby. She quickly draws the shadow from them and places them in her vial. The chairs shatter and turn to dust. She caps the vial once again and begins to stumble back toward the pyramid, her vision still kind of black.

Dimitri panted softly as he stared down at Shane's unconscious form, "What was that?" he asked shakily, speaking more so to himself than anyone around him. He felt nauseous, his stomach churned a bit too violently to his liking. Quite frankly it was the first time in a while that Dimitri was grateful he hadn't eaten. A series of scrabbling to his left and just above him alerted Dimitri to two things: Violet was once more on the move, and Molly and Ariella had come to Shane's aid. Remembering once more the point of the exercise Dimitri climbed the stairs himself and supported Violet, wrapping one arm around her waist while placing one of her arms around his shoulder. "Thanks for the assist, how ya holdin' up there slugger?" Dimitri inquired, putting on a somewhat strained smile as he helped her up the pyramid.

As he lay unconscious on the hill Shane, within his mind, was reliving the night he first got his powers. It was a series of images fading in an out with enough time to view each. He could see himself taking down the guard, finding the vial, fighting the second guard, then the vial contents getting into his eyes. This time it was different however. The second the black liquid touched his eyes a series of screams could be heard. They were much like the scream his Riftman form made only each one having a slightly different pitch. One after the other he'd see images of Malkaris along with corpses strewn across the room, blood coating the walls and floor. "That night...I didn't kill that one guard?", that vision revealed what really happened to him that night. He shifted for the first time and the entire security detail stormed the warehouse, but their numbers did not matter. Shane unknowingly slaughtered them all without hesitation, "No...no no that wasn't me. I wouldn't do that". Sure he killed one guy arguably out of self defense but this...this was something different. The scene could only be described as a slaughter house.  Suddenly he heard a voice, low and menacing. It was laaghing at him...It was Malkaris. After expressing its joy after seeing Shane's reaction it spoke, "Shane...Shane...Shane" it began to change in tone until he realized it was Ariella. He jerked himself forward once regaining consciousness taking a moment to determine if this was real or not. Satisfied that his ordeal was over he stood up, "...I'm fine. We need to get back to the game". Despite his seemingly detached stature he was beyond shaken. This whole event had caused him to stray away from using his powers.

Ariella kept shaking off Shane, as she was about to slap his face but he suddenly woke up and stood up going back to the game. "Wait!" she yelled at him and ran besides him. "Shane, stop. You can't go .. just stay here and rest or something... we can handle this... I think." Ariella knew that Shane wasn't going to listen to her, he was a guy after all. And already knowing Shane, he is the type of guy to not give up and also not caring if he is hurt or not. He wants to win, just like everyone of them. But Ariella tried, if he would stay perfect but if he will continue on the game that would be a bit bad for him. "Let's go..." she said turning around and continuing to run, hopefully she won't have to use her powers on somebody. Ariella was in game face mode!

His teammates were up, and apparently so was the opposing team because they were coming. "Alright then, time for a little defense." He started creating rods and planting them into the ground, bonding them together to create a small fortification. Making a couple steps and climbing up and alerted his team below. "Decibel, Shadow, best move out of the way!" Since none of his opponents were currently flying or anything he thought he would take a simple approach to test the waters. Throwing his hands out tiny beads by the hundreds began rolling and clattering down the hill. "No traction for you." He thought to himself. Now to see how they all reacted.

Violet, hearing James's call, pushes Dimitri to one side of the pyramid and begins to climb faster, getting slightly ahead of him. She is still very dizzy and stumbling, but she can see well enough to at least make it to the top. She looks back at Dimitri and says, "I'm alright. I think I can get it on my own right now." She continues to scramble to the top of mountain and takes a stand next to her teammates. She looks down at the upcoming opposing team and stares down at her shadows. The vial is about half full at the moment. She draws out a small silver, wrapping it around her arm, and presses her hand to the steps. The little tendrils move down the steps, going about halfway down the pyramid and form taunt strings across some of the steps. She hopes that this will trip up some of the opponents.

"I'm fine", he replied. His words weren't angry or intimidating. In fact they were void of almost all emotion. He knew she meant well but his mind wasn't focused on his well being so much as winning the game. Last class was his time to discover his weaknesses, now it was time to improve on them and he wasn't going to let anything stop him from doing that.  Shane's first few steps were uneasy as he was still a bit weak from before. He ascended the hill and began to increase speed when the other team sent down hundreds of beads accompanied by Shadow's trip lines. He stopped dead in his tracks and began to circumnavigate the hill until he reached an area relatively untouched by the beads. The strings would not be that much of a problem because as he began to close the distance between himself and the top of the hill his adrenaline was pumping that any strings he did run into he simply broke through but not without feeling the pressure of them against his legs. The strings did manage to trip him up slightly at one point but not enough to stop his advance completely. Shane was running completely on adrenaline and not only would it prove vital to what was coming next but the after effects would be...less than enjoyable.

Molly wipes her face clean before getting up and advancing slowly after Shane and Ariella, staying behind to support in case something goes squigly and someone falls. From the looks of those tiny balls headed towards them, that was about to become a very real possibility. Seeing that Shane had already moved to a place relatively unaffected by the small bead, she resolved that it was time to match speed and move up. She stumbled a bit as some beads rolled beneath her feet before falling hard. She growled angrily, just about fed up with all of this and with a great clap of her hands, that same low rumble emanated from her body as she created a conical wall of push force around her to redirect the balls to go AROUND where she was standing. She then pushed herself to her feet, face and nose beginning to get warm, and advanced forward in an attempt to push her way to the top of the pyramid as quickly as possible. The shadowy strings served to slow her down significantly, but she pushed on as well as she could, stumbling and bumbling but keeping her field up to avoid the worst of it.

As they were running up the hills, Ariella noticed Shane going back to the game. She shook her head and tried not to argue or anything because he did want to win the game, eventhough he was hurt and not in the greatest state to run. "Guys..! Watch out!" Ariella yelled as she threw her left hand in-front of her as the tiny beads that were falling froze in mid-air. "Just push them aside or something!" she said continuing to run and pushing the beads aside so they wouldn't trip the others down the hill. And there were also shadow strings, but they were ripped off because of Shane's adrenaline. He tripped. "Shane! Watch out!" helping him up and continued to run, feeling a bit tired but they had to win the game!

Dimitri barely registered what James had said before Violet pushed him to the side. The cyborg felt a bit indignant at first, however the sound of beads rushing down tipped him off to the fact that she'd helped him rather than rejecting his assistance. "Alright, time to get back to work." Dimitri said as he noticed Shane making his ascent. The cyborg contemplated blasting him again, but after what had just occurred, he found himself somewhat hesitant to deal with the teen again. Dimitri instead focused his attention on the two that had come to Shane's aid. "Hope you ladies haven't eaten recently, other wise this is going to be messy!" He shouted as he aimed his sound emitters at them and activated them. This time rather than a piercing sound, the room was filled with a low frequency hum. Dimitri smirked as he aimed not for Molly and Ariella's heads, but for their stomachs, intent on causing them some rather unpleasant nausea from the infrasound that he was producing.