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April, can you heal with water like Yagoda?" Andy asked, trying to snap her out of her panic attack. They were definitely not going to get marks for this fight. Thankfully she didn't really care about winning the tournament. To her it was a necessary part of going to this school, which she was attending to learn how to protect her mother from people who would want to free her. However, with Mothman still freaking out they needed to get rid of him. There was chaos happening since he was attracted to his own wings.

Andy focused on him pulling from deep within herself and hitting Mothman directly. The electricity sparked across its body. Knowing that it was made of magical water helped that make sense. Andy wondered if that was why Lady Nimue had chosen her for her team. The creature's form wavered and the water it was made of splashed out.

Mary Sue had to keep herself from face palming as the group of them, in their attempts to save Lady Nimue, attacked her instead. She wasn't very concerned for the Lady's wellbeing, being fairly confident that she'd be able to survive just about anything they could throw at her, even if they wanted to kill her, but in any case, if they had been trying to save somebody who wasn't nigh immortal, they would have just murdered the person they were supposed to save. They needed to improve, desperately, and she had no idea what more she could do to make sure that happened.

As the Mothman was dealt with, Mary Sue approached the scene, unsure of where to go from here. She didn't want to say anything, instead reliant on the feedback from their leader, once she decided to stop playing possum. If this persisted, she might feel a bit unease, but as it stood, all they could really do was see if April was going to try anything to "heal" her. Clearing her throat, she said, "Um, I might be wrong about this, so we should try to help anyway, but Lady Nimue should be fine. It wouldn't be a strict overstatement to say she's a goddess, so I'm not confident we could kill her." Her voice was small, but if anything, she was looking to provide some degree of reassurance to her teammates.

"We'll get ya used ta t'at in no time in t'is group!" Danni exclaimed cheerfully as he pushed himself back to his feet. He flashed Firestar a thumbs up. "Good idea, Starry! Get an extra scoop for us and we'll see ya in class later! Gunna get t'at 'ero spirit in ya one way or anot'er, right Dee? Just need a bitta polish and a 'and full of friendship and you'll be one death defying experience away from bein' an Avenger!" Danni laughed. He knew she was just upset about the whole day; once she got some support and felt comfy with them, she'd step right up like the rest of them!

"Whelp, let's skedaddle back ta Poisson-Pas 'fore Beanie and Spicy finish wit' da bomb. Don't t'ink we can catch up, but we can try!" Danni linked his arm with Dee's, sauntering back towards class now that the Zelds fiasco was handled. He still wasn't cool with the whole I'mma-fuck-over-my-teammates thing but she was a freshie; she deserved some slack. "Ya t'ink Poisson-Pas is gunna be pissed or is 'e gunna be one of t'ose wierdo Profs who gold stars people for like, friendship? Like, 'is whole "T'ere are no second chances" brimstone and fire speech make me t'ink no, but like on da ot'er 'and he wants us ta be a big, well working machine and for us ta be a big ol' machine, I need friendship so we could say this was a good exercise right? Ugh, I don't wanna start da school year wit' a big, fat zero already, ya know? Imma get enough of t'em when my 'ead gets all wonky and I forget 'bout boring assignments. Then, I'll 'ave ta beg ta turn stuff in late but I can't just like, snap my fingers and moonwalk back in time and remember. Ugh. Great. Poisson-Pas is gunna hate me already." Dannie whined at Dee as he led them back to class, kicking open the door when they arrived.

"Aight, Poisson-Pas, Starry's gettin' Zelds some ice cream, Dee phased out your ropes 'cause 'e 'ates me, but I t'ink Zelds is warmin' up ta us! She didn't immediately set flaming bees on us when we 'ugged 'er so definitely takin' t'at as a win! Did ya know t'at was gunna 'appen, you know, wit' your whole time portin' t'in'?" Danni stopped in the room, frowning. "Wait, do you know everyt'in' t'ats gunna 'appen, or do you just like move around or somet'in'? If ya told us t'is, I genuinely do not remember. Wait, did ya know we'd be tryin' out t'is year?" Danni asked and then gasped. "Omg, did you know we were tryin' out and you liked us enough ta transfer 'ere for us? Aw, and here I t'ought you were a grumpy old man after the second chances t'in', but you're a big ol' softie!"

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Diana would let out a rather loud yelp as she was bitched slapped, which knocked her down onto the ground letting out a slight groan as she glared up at Victoria. To her it felt a little bit condescending as she gave Victoria a bit of an annoyed glare, she was a little bit disoriented when Vicky brought down her armored boot. She tried to teleport away but she wasn't able to in time as her head was crushed, and she felt it. Then she was teleported back to her original spawn point, Diana quickly took off her quiver and inspected it, there was a bunch of arrows. She managed to find three trick arrows, one was an EMP, which would be really useful against Vicky and her fancy armor, the other was a fire and a boomerang arrow to.

"Not cool at all." Diana said as she could feel the ground shaking slightly, she assumed that it was the fight between Zari and Leah going on. Diana quickly ran over to where the bow was laid on the ground where she had died a few seconds ago. But she was more or less focused on going up against Victoria right now as she quickly managed to properly string the arrow this time, Diana quickly notched the EMP arrow and fired off. Only for it to fly harmlessly past Victoria and hitting the ground, which was really annoying she quickly made a beeline towards one of the pillars for cover against Vicky thanks to Leah for making them.

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Madalyne watched as Moth-Man was lit on fire thanks to her fireball and smiled slightly towards herself, as he seemed to be attracted to his own flaming wings now. Andy quickly managed to take out Moth-Man with ease thanks to her powers Madalyne quickly made a beeline towards their mentor Lady Nimue seemed to be dazed maybe or something as she looked at the bats there were still some there. "I can try and heal her, April I think there are some bats still flying around can you try and take them out Andy as well to?" Madalyne suggested as she knelt down next to Lady Nimue.

"Mary-Sue make a barrier or something and protect the rest of us from the remaining bats and in case something else comes out to play." Madalyne suggested hopefully the healing would work well enough. Mary-Sue seemed to know a bit about their mentor which was a good thing then and she was a goddess so she'd be alright. She closed her eyes as she started to try the spell that she knew to try and heal her.

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As her foot fell down, Victoria wondered what she was feeling. She expected some sort of vindictive satisfaction, but it did not arrive. The rage has left her too, and she eventually settled on disappointment. She picked up the bow and looked it over, the first thought on her mind being to break it. Eliminate the threat. But... Then she'd learn nothning. Besides, I gave Leah another go at me, hardly seems fair not to give Diana the same courtesy. No need to be a bitch about it though... But let's not give her a pat on the back either. she thought, setting her diagnostics suite to work on the problem with her chest piece as she walked over to Diana's spawn point.

Oh, Diana was not a happy customer by the look of things. Good. "Feeling angry? Humiliated? You do realize that were this a real fight, your family would soon be attending a closed casket funeral, all because you were vain and didn't have your head in the game, right? Here." she said, her tone level rather and devoid of emotions, supplying raw facts, as she handed Diana her bow back. "The next one is free, make it count. Also, drop by after classes, and collect Leah on your way. I'll show you a concept from armored vehicle fighting that might be useful to know." she offered and walked back to her earlier position at the edge of the line of pillars.

A moment later, her diagnostic suite dinged and spat out the report, indicating that the problem was indeed a severed power line. Blast! I can't fix that, that would need to be replaced. Her train of thought was interrupted by an arrow whistling past her and burying itself in the ground. Being distracted with the damage report, she first looked after the arrow rather than where it came from and shooting back, which meant that when she finally did, she only saw Diana getting into cover. Mentally giving herself a kick, Victoria at least approved of Diana's new tactics. Walking over to pick up the arrow, she inspected it. EMP. Clever girl. Suit has military level hardening of course, but then again, Hawkeye packs arrows that have annoyingly strong discharge for their size. Better safe than sorry. she thought and promptly crushed the arrow's shaft into splinters, tossing the arrowhead away to some shrubbery near the edge of the arena.

Victoria briefly deliberated what to do next. Diana was now focused on her, so she could continue that fight. Edward was nowhere to be seen, so trying to flush him out was a possibility. Then there was the technopath, which was the biggest threat and What in the Sam Hill is going on over there? her train of thought ran into a rock wall, she saw Leah's head poking over one of the pillars, looking all false super sayian and talking with Zari. Logic said she should hit Zari while she was distracted, but then again, she might just get beat upon by SuperLeah. Diana it was then.

Turning back to the pillar she was hiding behind, Victoria opted for the brute force approach. Reseting her defense per her notes, she dropped down to one knee and raised her hands in front of her, open palms facing away from each other. Heh. Makankosappo! she thought, launching an overcharged repulsor beam.

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@Achronum@BlueSky44@Trainerblue192@Ogobrogo

For a moment there, Firestar had almost forgotten why she had been coming this way. One of her students had been violently sick the last few days, and the nurse had finally figured it out this morning. The meds Teddy took to suppress his powers had been weakening his immune system as well - now that they had been flushed out of his system, he was back in perfect health. It wasn't his fault that he had missed his audition time slot. And it was his senior year. Firestar had been bringing him to go see Ser Nemo, determined to get him a spot on that team.

They had paused for a moment for Teddy to go use the restroom - the small group in the hallway was standing right outside the sign for the men's room.

The boys had done their best to calm Zelda back down, and they returned to class. "Okay, ice cream it is," Firestar told Zelda, giving her a comforting smile. She then turned her attention towards the men's restroom. "I need to drop off a student with Ser Nemo, and then we can go," Angelica added. "Teddy, you alright in there?" she called out.

She then internally winced. Was that be embarrassing of her? Oh gods, she wasn't even in her mid 30's yet and she was already deeply uncool...

@Achronum@Trainerblue192

Ser Nemo didn't seem surprised by what Danni had told him, but he chuckled nonetheless at the last part. "This is my first year teaching anywhere. Before I worked here, I was policing the timeline at the behest of my Lady Saturnyne," Nemo explained to Danni. "As to whether I know everything that is going to happen... Where would be the fun in telling you if that was the case, my dear boy? Now, strap yourselves together. If you work quickly, you may still beat the other pair."

@Blizz@Forsythe@Nallore@BlueSky44

Leah's strange transformation left everyone baffled - even Zari did not recognize what had happened to her. Arcade was (somewhat grossly, but was a teenage boy) salivating at the sight of a seven foot tall scary woman who could definitely step on him. He was similarly interested in Vicky, after she had killed Diana by literally stepping on her. He was never super interested in the Contest of Champions throughout his years at the academy, but he couldn't help but be fascinated by his teammates.

And as luck would have it, Arcade happened to be in those bushes where Vicky had tossed the EMP arrowhead. He quickly grabbed it, and looked at his hunting knife, wishing he had some cord or something so he could tie them together. So far, his strategy of hiding out and waiting for the others to kill each other seemed to be working. But if he was being honest, he was a bit bored with hiding. He wanted the show to get ever higher, ever better.

Vicky's repulsor blast went off without a hitch, catching Diana square in the chest. Diana wasn't very lucky it seemed. The piercing attack killed her almost instantly - her form shimmered and faded away, as she respawned onto the platform. Just a single life left.

"SOME OF YOU AREN'T KILLING EACH OTHER ENOUGH!" Usagi's voice boomed throughout the arena.

The ground shook, and this time, it wasn't Leah's doing. The small arena was now soaring upwards, as the sky turned black and eerie. And then, appearing out of nowhere, there was a GIANT WHITE GLOVED HAND. It was the size of a building. It was Master Hand from Super Smash Bros.

Master Hand grabbed Zari! Zari would manage to glitch herself out of the hand, falling and landing on the arena. The hand was flexing its fingers menacingly, this time reaching out for the rogue queen herself, Leah!

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"...Yagoda? Who's that? Is that a Star Wars character? Like Yoda's secret twin or something? I mean, doesn't matter, since it sounds like that person can heal with water - oh, like Katara! Ummm. Well, no. I don't think so. I mean. I've never really tried? Like, maybe I can, but I've never been in a position where someone was hurt and there wasn't, like, an actual medical person. Or a bandaid. Or like it was a bruise and they didn't need anything, so... who knows? Maybe? I don't think water actually has any healing properties, I think it's kinda just a gimmick, but I can try!"

Mary Sue's point that Lady Nimue was basically a goddess helped to soothe her nerves and anxiety somewhat. They definitely couldn't have killed their teacher then, right? Mads cast a spell from her grimoire, heal, but it didn't seem to take at all. There was no change. Lady Nimue was still motionless and unconscious.

April's anxiety flared back up again. Maybe Nimue wasn't as durable as the other goddesses. Maybe they really HAD killed her. "Um, Mads, is she, like, breathing or something? Or... I think it's still called breathing when you have gils, right? Does she have gils? Does a person made of water need to breathe???"

Andy killed Mothman with a powerful bolt of lightning. He dissipated into fine watery mist. April felt like crying over everything that had happened, as she shot off blasts of water at the remaining bats. There weren't very many left. She got lucky. She managed to take them out.

For a moment, the training room was quiet.

Then, Lady Nimue yawned. "Had your Lady been mortal, she would be dead," Nimue said sharply to the girls. "But I did not charge you with the care of such a person, so you have passed. I would ask each of you now to reflect, and tell me what you could improve for next time. Whoever wishes to start may do so. We will then proceed with the next course of your training for today."

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Percy snorted slightly, a bit amused with Sabine's choice. "Why aren't you doing this yourself?" He wasn't even mad about it. He cracked his knuckles and stretched out his fingers. It was fake, but he did remember now spending a week at a bomb disarmament training camp. It was bizarre. He could even recall his moms dropping him off, telling him about how important a skill this was going to be, and that the teacher smelled like string cheese. "Not that I'm complaining. I would rather be the one to do this anyways," he said. When it came to matters of life and death, Percy would rather handle it himself. He didn't want someone else pressing the button. He'd live or die by his own choices and actions - not someone else's.

He approached the bomb. He sorted through the fake memories. He knew exactly how this bomb was made. But how to unmake it - was it as simple as doing everything in reverse? Should he cut the wires in opposite order to their installation? He was about to make that cut, but then hesitated. What if this was wrong? What if he cut the wrong wire and he died on the first day of training?

One of his moms had almost ended the world to retrieve a friend from the quantum realm - what would she do if her son died?

Percy cut the wire. His heart was pounding. His hands were steady, as much as they wanted to tremble. But nothing happened. The bomb didn't go off. The door to exit the obstacle course swung open. They had done it. They just needed to continue to awkwardly shimmy their way along, still tied together. It was pretty annoying having had to hobble around, even though Percy had teleported them most of the way along.

But then an electronic countdown started behind them. Ten, nine, eight, seven...

"Run!!" Percy shouted, hobbling forward as fast as he could, temporarily forgetting just from fear and panic that he could just teleport them out of this one.

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Dorian instantly let go of Zelda when she'd mentioned her distaste for hugs. His hands held up in the same manner one might do to a cop to show they're complacent and peaceful. He heard what Zelda had said about not wanting to be a hero, as well as not thinking that she even was one. He'd fought the urge to lecture her about how heroism comes about I'm many different ways. Not all heros wore capes, and some of them even designed the capes. She could be a hero to someone without even having to stop a runaway car or alien invasion. But now wasn't the time for that kind of talk, if anything he'd figured that Firestar had all that sort of talk on hand and ready to dish out for moments like this. Dorian followed behind Danni, turning to give Firestar a thumbs up and silent you got this towards her as they made their way back towards the Training Room.

"Relax D. I 'ave a whole speech planned for good ol Poisson-Pas. Use 'is own words against 'im in such a way I'm sure 'e'd be proud. Eit'er way I 'ave an idea on 'ow we can catch up in t'is little contest. Besides Perse said 'e didn't want a Pizza prize and Beanie probably won't eat a slice because it isn't French enough or somet'ing I don't know. We should be t'e winners of t'is! Beside's she can't touch me wit' my 'andy-" Dorian pat the sides of his shorts only to feel the fabric against his hands. He shot a quick glance and realized that in their rush to tell Nemo that they'd made a casting call error, he'd forgotten to bring his own weapon to help against mental attacks. Suddenly it all made sense. I mean he was a bit ADHD but not 'leave the gym and immediately forget the last ten minutes or so' ADHD. Sabine must've used her powers against him as they left hoping they wouldn't come back to finish.

Any idea Dorian had had to fairly win this was out the window. "Change of plans D. You're gonna run straight t'rough that obstacle course solo. I'm gonna go wreak a little Poltergeist size of chaos on t'ier end to hold t'em back long enough for you to finish. You got t'is!" By then they were already inside the room and Percy and Sabine were just about to finish. Lucky for him the idiots were walking out instead of using their greatest strength. Dorian flashed Danni a smile before going ghost and flying straight through the course and into Percy. It was more difficult this time around, as if Percy was fighting him every step of the way. Both their souls entwined in a mental battle of wits within the arena that was Percy's body.

Unfortunately for the pair, Dorian won out. "Wait. What am I doing? Let's just teleport out of here." Dorian said using Percy's voice in hopes Sabine wouldn't figure it out. He quickly used Percy's powers jutting them backwards into the course to where the box and tooth had been found. "I have it this time. Hold on." He jumped again, shooting them straight back towards the second obstacle, the thorn wall. It wasn't as far as Dorian had wanted to move them, but it was good enough. Sabine would have to drag dead weight if she dared to move forward in this competition. "I think I jumped too much…I don't…feel so good." Was tbay how powers worked? No idea, but he knew his father always felt a bit weak when moving large portions so maybe Percy did too, not that Dorian could feel it.

Among trees that grew taller than mountains, past a mist through which no god or man could divine a path, the world stood still.

Grinta's mind drifted through the earth and into the sky, letting all the universe flow through her soul like a river. From the river, she drank the water of life that all things needed, living or dead. Her body slowed to an unmoving pace. She was detached from the world, and yet she sat there in her home, no less apart of the world than the grass or the wind. Grinta became a thread in a weave that transcended the scope of conscious understanding, one that she was inexorably connected to, as everything that ever was or will be is connected to her. Her body faded from her memory, eroding into dust carried across the winds of time, as she let herself flow forth, unfettered, as the weave bent and tugged upon her. Time was a breath, and Grinta did not feel the urge to breathe. Thought was water, and Grinta would dive as deep as the ocean's floor, but she would not come to fear drowning.

She left her shell of bones and blood in the old timber home that was built long ago. Her body was there, but Grinta was everywhere. Every rock, every gust of wind, ever star that burned in the night sky. They were all vessels for her form. There was only the thought, the will to exist, a dream to be at one with all the entropy and harmony that performed the dance known as Creation. There was no pain, no gravity, no emotion.

There was only Grinta, and Grinta became it all.

ᛁ ᚨᛗ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛋᚲᛃ. ᛁ ᚨᛗ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛖᚨᚱᛏᚺ. ᛁ ᛒᚱᛁᚾᚷ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚾᛁᚷᚺᛏ, ᚨᚾᛞ ᛁ ᚱᚨᛁᛋᛖ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛋᚢᚾ ᚠᚱᛟᛗ ᛏᚺᛖ ᚾᛟᛏᚺᛁᚾᚷ.

ᛁ ᚨᛗ ᚨᛚᛚ.

Grinta did not say the words. She imagined them, and they were true. She crossed the wall of knowing, into the void of purified will.

She opened a door that the gods themselves longed to reach.

On the other side of that door was everything that was ever touched by creation. Reality distilled into a single breath, which Grinta breathed. She was conscious, though not in the traditional sense. If the universe was a living thing, she had just been assimilated into its brain. She felt everything it felt, heard everything it heard, and listened when it spoke. And the universe did not speak, it cried. From a place physically distant, though tangibly apart of her in this state, Grinta heard a wail of pain, estranged and foreign to her. In the sense of circulation returning to a limb, as needling receded. Grinta paid attention to the will behind that pain. It was wild, scared, and felt impossibly alone among its own. What could be severed so, when all the world was one, she wondered aloud. The universe could not answer, because she did not know.

The words were heard through a hundred trillion ears.

What did you do to me?

Grinta's presence was violently pulled back home at the sound of the voice. The formless was formed again, and the door was snapped shut loud enough that it awoke her from her daze. Grinta's eyes flew open, her heart hammered in her chest as she reminded herself that she was at home again. The house was dead silent, beyond the heartbeat pounding in her ears. The sound of distant footsteps and rattling metal trilled on the wind, and Grinta saw silver leaves drifting outside the window. She collected her thoughts into her finite skull once more.

"She's alive..."

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Zarina's "explanation" didn't explain shit. Leah wanted to reach out and grind the girl to dust between her hands. Lasers were flying through the air and someone got their head caved in- At least she thought, she wasn't at her best for perception- and the fucking sky was falling! Assuming the Framework in the real world was monitoring the heart rates of Leah and her "teammates," Leah's was pushing 220 bpm. Her heart rate was naturally higher in the first place, but this was extreme for her. Her skin would not stop feeling like it was dipped in molten metal, even as a giant hand appeared out of thin fucking air. Fuck. FUCK. FUCK.

Where did the sky go? What happened to her? Why was she in so much pain, why was she taller, why was she spewing smoke, why couldn't she control her powers? Leah was trying to grasp this, but she couldn't. She wanted to leave, to escape this situation and let everyone in the entire school, Sabine and April included, forget her existence for a whole 24 hours. People could see her panicking, it was obvious that something was wrong with Leah, and it only made things worse. It felt like she was a microscopic lifeform under a microscope, every single flaw and insecurity that Leah felt terrified to show being laid completely bare before everyone present. All the training Imperator burned into her was screaming against the underside of her skull to get a fucking grip.

But she couldn't. Even having her body snapped in half by the old man didn't feel this awful.

Perhaps the one thing that prevented Leah from devolving into a full-blown panic attack was her understanding of combat. She saw the stupid fucking hand coming for her and in a fit of blind fury swung her arm at it. It felt awkward, Leah was in a body she wasn't used to. And she almost lost her footing and made a boulder far too small come up to spear the hand. It was about five feet in diameter, and she'd be lucky if it even did anything to the thing. She was in a frenzy right now, and Leah's grip on her powers was slipping out of her grasp. The ground started tremoring again, enough that people might stumble if they weren't careful, though they likely wouldn't notice it. She didn't know what to do, yelling for Usagi to stop the simulation would've been something she'd never live down. Usagi would kick her out and she'd be a failure.

The faint humming of the fluorescent lights above was met with the sound of the water rushing out from a faucet only to splatter onto the basin below, both only serving to accent the numb silent buzzing that threatened to split the young man’s head. The creature that filled the mirror above the sink - only barely fitting into frame - stared at his reflection with beady brown eyes, his head held low, ears back, mouth agape.

Me.

Me watched himself, studying the brown fur that covered his muzzle, trailing down his face and dipping beneath his…

…what was the word?

…

Shirt.

His shirt. His white shirt. Button-up. A tie keeps his collar closed. Black tie. Suspenders keep his slate gray pants up.

Uniform.

Me hated the uniform. Hard to move. Easy to tear. Tearing was bad. Right?

…

Me couldn’t recall. His sleeves were rolled up. Too much hair. Too much fur. More than normal. A deep huff escaped him.

He was getting frustrated.

The Me in the mirror mocked him - CHALLENGED him. As Me stretched tall, so did the Me in the mirror, both just shy of scraping the ceiling. No…not Me…

The voice coming from beyond called for someone named Teddy.

His name was Teddy. And despite current appearances, he was a man. The creature turned his head toward the exit, breaking his gaze upon his reflection. The man within the beast was finding his way back into the driver’s seat. He had nearly lost himself...but would that have been such a bad thing? How easy it would be to just give in to the base instincts that rule the creature, to not think about his most recent failure. Too sick to make it to auditions. Bah. Pathetic. Months of training - wasted. And for what? So he could pretend that he wasn’t a monster? His vanity had cost him his chance to earn a spot on a team. What the stakes would have been higher? What if somebody was hurt or worse all because pathetic little Teddy had an upset stomach after taking his ‘Real Boy’ pills?

…

Teddy shook his head, killing the flow of water. He knew there was nothing good to come from beating himself up over hypotheticals…but the shame and embarrassment was gnawing at him. The guy hunched over even more in an attempt to hide from an invisible audience before slinking toward the exit.

As he rounded the corner to rejoin Miss Jones, it would become clear that he had grown several inches just in the time that it took him to dip into the bathroom. The shirt which had laid somewhat baggy on his body before the bathroom trip now was filled out completely to the point that it was nearly too small for him. The black bear had become the Kodiak. The boy offered Firestar a nod and, upon spotting her, offered Zelda one as well before turning back to his teacher, only hesistating for a moment when he caught the whiff of a rather pleasant scent coming from the direction of the gym. It was strong. It was distracting. It was nice. He tilted his head at her, still not entirely sure where she was dragging him and why.

Even now, part of him wanted nothing else than to storm off to go sulk in solitude. Teddy managed to bury that shameful part of himself underneath an eagerness to just finally get to whatever task Miss Jones had for him so that he could throw himself into work and occupy his mind with something more productive.

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Diana grumbled to herself mostly, she was really getting annoyed by Vicky and wanted to just take off that stupid helmet of hers and bash her head in with it. Diana remained under cover when she heard what sounded like a repulsor blast going off, and she felt a sharp pain going through her body as she went flying and skidded across the ground. Then she died yet again and respawned once more at her spawn location. Diana was really annoyed now at this point as she could feel the ground starting to shake, and then the sky darkened over the arena.

When Diana turned to look up she noticed the Master Hand from Smash Bros had suddenly appeared, it seemed like it was mainly focused on Zari and Leah which was good then. Diana closed her eyes as she tried to teleport once more, only part of her body had teleported to it's intended destination, her lower half of her body was still behind cover.

Her powers decided to not work as she lost her last life and Diana was quickly ejected from the Framework, Diana quickly woke back up inside of the Framework tank and Diana quickly swam up and unhooked herself from the framework she really was annoyed that she ended up loosing pretty badly.

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Madalyne knelt down as she tried to do her healing spell on Lady Nimue only for her to feel it not working as she looked up at April for a moment. Their mentor was a goddess after all so she would be fine the beating she had gotten didn't seem to hurt her, and a few seconds later Lady Nimue started to come to. Moth-Man was destroyed thanks to Andy and the remaining bats also seemed to be destroyed as well to, she closed her eyes and sighed slightly. So far they had failed two tasks given to them by their team mentor as Madalyne tried to think as she looked at her teammates as she thought what they needed to improve on.

No one else seemed to want to talk first as she looked at April, Andy and Mary-Sue on what they needed to improve upon for the Contest of Champions and so she decided to speak up first. To her the team needed some sort of leader, and then work on each member's strength. "I think we need to focus more on team building and teamwork, and focus on our strengths and where one of us might be lacking then one of the others could try and pick up the slack." Madalyne suggested looking at her teammates as well as their mentor.

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They had it.

They were so close. Percy had diffused the bomb and they were scott-free. However, the timer ticking down was another thing altogether. And given she knew it was C4, it would be immense. Percy called for them to run, but Sabine took a minute. Didn't the dude have teleportation powers?

Before she could call him out on that, Percy came to his senses and teleported them. She was used to it by now but when they blinked back to existence they were right back to the thorn wall. Sabine couldn't believe it. The fucking freshman ruined their chances of winning now, surely. And now he was sick.

Sabine glanced over to him after he complained. Sick? Dude teleported around all the time. The first time she did she was sick, he should be used to it.

Taking her hunch, she used her powers to get inside Percy's head. Something wasn't right. And then she noticed. She remembered who she was dealing with.

"Dorian, get out of him and get back to your team or so help me I will rip you out myself and shove you so far up your own ass even your ghost powers won't get you free!"

Sabine attempted to boot Dorian out herself, but he was latched on to Percy's soul, not his mind. She couldn't do much.

Well, she could, but Percy wouldn't like it.

"Fine, if you won't come out, I'll do it myself."

She glanced at Percy, hoping the kid was in there somewhere still, and shrugged. "Wanted to do this the first time we met but at least I have a plausible reason this time. Sorry kid." And with as much might as she could muster...cold-clocked Percy, sending the freshman to the floor, not moving, out cold.

She waited a beat, before she ran over, attempting to wake him up. Hopefully Dorian would get kicked out. "Percy, wake up now. We need you to teleport us to the end. We saw it. We were there! Preferably before or after the bomb explodes."

Mary Sue pursed her lips at Mads' answer. She wasn't wrong, but that wasn't satisfactory to her personally. She wanted to be able to say something that she herself could have personally done differently. To that end, she looked between her teammates and said, "We... might have avoided you getting grabbed if we actually listened to your initial command." She said, and felt her heart jump in her chest at what she was about to say, "Um. Teamwork is important, but we need to actually know what we're working towards before we can even think about working together."

She really hoped that that wasn't too contrarian. She had her own ideas about how to do things right, but she didn't want to cause friction unecessarily. She just... really wanted to be able to do this hero thing. She wanted to make this world better, and that meant learning here, and constantly trying to improve. She was caught between worrying about seeming like a try hard, and actually wanting to try hard. It seemed that, at least for a little whule, she would be uncomfortable, and all she could really hope was that she could learn to thrive in discomfort.

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Zelda just nodded her head, kind of glad that Dorian and Danni had decided finally to just leave and head back to the class or whatever. Since then she didn't have to deal with them causing her to feel insanely claustrophobic with them hanging around her. Though now it was more apparent how they easily could get along with April since they were all practically the same person in her opinion with how they acted. Which was just weird to her in general really.

Of course she didn't expect the person who Firestar was waiting on to be a bear. Or well, at least part bear. But the kind of sudden shock from that quickly disappeared, since the school had a variety of people, so it wasn't super weird or anything like that. Though she wasn't entirely sure about going back to the room already considering she kind of had bolted from the room, so she wasn't entirely sure how seeing the teacher she had ran out on would work out.

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"Maybe try and relax a little? I mean I know that sort of thing is hard... Especially considering right now... But you need to take deep breaths and try to calm down... After all, you can't focus on figuring everything out when you can't even center yourself. So try to do that right now okay? I get it, everything is probably weird and all, but you need to focus in order for us to try to figure out what happened, okay?" Zari said to Leah, unsure of what else to really say to her. It actually was similar to her grandpa at times, considering he had a big green monster to hold back and all.

Her attention instantly shifted towards the annoying hand that magically appeared and had tried to grab her and pull her into the air. "Ruuuuuuuuuuude!" she complained as she glitched out of Master Hand's grasp. Of course, she instantly drew her sword and twirled it around, before charging forward and launched herself up into the air, before bringing her sword straight down on the thing. And her sword strike went straight through, as she managed to chop off the thumb of the hand rather easily. "It is rude to try to grab people when they are trying to have a conversation and try to help someone figure out what the hell is going on!" she said instantly to the thing.

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"I also think it'd be good for us to discuss what our powers are." Andy added. "I can create and manipulate electrical energy, obviously. I also have really good reflexes." She paused. "And I can drain people's life energy. I haven't done that a whole lot. Really only one other time."

She looks at Mads, "I am sorry for draining yours. Like I said we should avoid skin-to-skin contact going forward. I can't control that power like I can my electrical energy."

Andy considered the threat she was to the student body. If that had happened outside this room it could have gone very badly. Without Lady Nimue there...Well, no reason to think about hypotheticals. She would have to get a pair of gloves to prevent such a thing from happening again. Up to this point it hadn't been an issue. Zari seemed unbothered by her touch.

[center]

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Location: Training Room B
Skills: Pyrokinesis

Danni flashed his friend a thumbs up as he ghosted off. "Yeah! You go spooky t'em a bit, tun t'em 'round 'til t'ere too tired ta run t'e race!" Danni cheered. He turned his attention onto the obstacle course, and realized this was his first time really looking at it. A canoe suspended over a chasm and a thorn wall seemed very out of place in this environment. What did Poisson-Pas do to grow a whole wall? Danni considered he could have planted it, but seemed like a waste when a bunch of teenagers were probs gunna raze it down.

"Whelp, t'is is certainly a tricky t'in'." Danni said at the end of the drop, eyes following the rope suspending the canoe. Again, just a weird choice. [color =E948FC] "Okay, rope. Rope, rope, rope. Flammable so maybe I should just like, climb across. But will my noodle arms get me t'ere? Hm… No, definitely not."[/color] Danni sighed after checking his muscles. Fire it was!

Danni gave himself a running head start and jumped with a loud whoop!. He was gunna for it! Long jump Danni wins agai- He hit the peak of the arc must earlier than expected, so palms down, fire out got him just enough momentum to catch the edge of the canoe and pull himself in. "Aw yeah, go Danni, go Danni! Didn't set t'e canoe on fire whoop whoot!" He celebrated, doing a little wiggle from excitement.

[coloe=E948FC] "Okay Danni round 2. Over t'e wall. No fire walls, even if t'ey'd be cool as shit."]/color] Danni muttered, pumping himself up. Once again, he left but instead of landing, he was fully reliant on his fire. He didn't catch the weariness until it was too late, an awkward pain in his wrist, a droop in his eyes, but he hit the ground hard and he stayed there for a moment, sucking in air that was punched put on him.

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@BlueSky44@Ogobrogo:

Firestar offered Teddy a supportive smile. She then motioned for the students to follow her, leading them into Training Room B. Ser Nemo, an elderly gentlemen that both of her charges had already met, was sitting on a lounge chair, sipping a cup of tea. He had a plain notebook in front of him, and he twisted a ring on his ring finger as he sat in contemplative silence. There was a gigantic obstacle course of sorts, two of them, set up in most of the room. The ground shook from an explosion going off. Firestar winced.

"Ser Nemo, I know that your team is full but I was--" Firestar began.

"Yes, I will take Mr. Thompson," Ser Nemo said somewhat absentmindedly, a bit lost in thought clearly at the moment.

"How did you know I was..."

"Going to ask that? Knowing things is my business. Should Miss Flynn feel comfortable returning to class, I will pair her with Mr. Thompson for the rest of this exercise. If not, I hope she enjoys her time with you. Perhaps you will inspire her to stay at this institution."

Firestar blinked. She knew that Ser Nemo was one of those time travel types, so it wasn't too crazy for him to know all of this, but it made her uncomfortable. She liked free will. She didn't like the idea that she was fated to do things, even things like advocating for one of her students.


@Nallore: Next to the tanks, Usagi was sitting in front of the monitors, where they could see all of the Framework actions. She was cackling to herself - on one monitor, she had a looped replay of every death happening. "Not so tough now, huh, girlie?" Usagi baited Diana. "If this had been the real thing, you'd be dead. Triple dead. Not just sleeping dead. Dead as in years later, you don't even turn up at the big event dead."

Usagi then turned her little cat head, giving Diana her full attention. "You've got homework. 1000 words on how you fucked up. But for now, you're in charge of this thing. You get to try to kill your friends. For every friend you kill successfully with this, I'll knock off 200 words. I've got loads of things programmed into this, so... What do you want to throw at them next?" Usagi asked. The Magic Hand was still on the board - although currently he was missing a thumb.

@Blizz@Forsythe@BlueSky44

The Master Hand this time decided to go after Leah. Without a thumb, grabbing things was going to be VERY challenging. But there were still things a giant floating hand could do. The hand flattened itself out and slammed itself down onto Leah, hoping to flatten her like a pancake. Instead, a Leah-shaped hole emerged in the Hand. The Hand writhed, as if it were screaming. The giant hole was in the middle of the hand and pixelated blood floated off of it into the air.

Arcade was beginning to sweat nervously. What if those three couldn't defeat the Master Hand? Did he have to beat the Hand in order to win? Knowing Usagi, he'd have to. He hated that stupid cat rabbit.

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April hated these sort of reflection assignments - mostly because her preferred time to think about everything horrible about herself was late at night, in bed, staring up at the ceiling and wondering what the point of it all was. Everyone took all the low hanging fruit too - that they needed to work together, that they needed to listen, that they needed to learn about each other. What was there left for April to say? She bit the inside of her cheek, knowing that there'd be a sore spot there later on, but she didn't care.

"Um, well, I obvi agree with what everyone else said - that we don't really know how to work together or how to listen or really what everyone is capable of but... I don't even know if I know what I'm capable of, you know? Like you can look at me and go, oh, that girl can move water - but can I heal with it? I have no idea. Can I blood bend? No clue. Could I make a fancy dress out of water and spin and twirl like a Disney movie? Who knows, so, like... I think that's what I need to do, on top of the other things, is just... What am I capable of? What are the limits of my power?" April rambled.

Lady Nimue seemed to be satisfied - April was slowly getting better at studying her watery face. "Very good. For your next exercise, this is one in teamwork. April and Madalyne, you two will work together. Diana and Mary Sue, you will form the other pair. I would like for you to demonstrate an application of your combined powers. Please begin now, and keep in mind these reflections."

A twinge of excitement went through April. She didn't say it, but what Lady Nimue was asking of them was similar to a concept popular in the mutant community - the power circuit. Using two or more powers together to create something those powers could not achieve on their own. And here she was, paired up with her bestie. Her bestie the teenage witch. With magic and water, there ought to be no issue at all coming up with a cool application, right?

April quickly moved next to Mads, whispering in her ear. "What if we, like, had you brew a potion that does something when it touches things and I, then, like, use my water powers to throw it around everywhere? Or maybe we could do something like where I make shapes out of water and then you use your magic to change them into fire or earth or air or something or like even cotton candy? What do you think?"

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There was one unfortunate effect of Sabine sucker punching Percy - they were tied together, so as he fell to the ground, so did she. From their position in front of the second obstacle, the thorn wall, they'd be able to feel the explosive go off at the fourth obstacle. If there had been any doubts about Ser Nemo being willing to risk their lives, they would be quickly dispelled now. Sabine's attempts to rouse Percy hadn't worked.

Sabine and Percy had been moments away from victory, about to win the coveted pizza, when everything had gone pear shaped - or really Dorian shaped.

Dorian's grip on Percy's soul had loosened, and while it seemed uncertain at first, Percy struggled to open his eyes. If he had felt ill before, he felt terrible now. There was the strange illness, combined with Dorian's assault on his bodily autonomy, and now his head was ringing. His vision was blurring and doubling as he looked at Sabine on the ground next to him, and his skin looked green. If his thoughts had been more with it, he'd have realized he had a concussion.

"He... fucking... sucks," Percy mumbled. His ears were ringing. He couldn't stop it anymore. Like an uncontrollable avalanche launching from his mouth, he vomited. He vomited up all of the coffee he had had that morning. He vomited up the bits of food he had eaten as well. It covered him and Sabine. It was not cool. When he finished vomiting, Percy lay there weakly. His ears were burning. "I... sorry," he muttered, feeling ashamed, as he then vomited again.

He tried to teleport them back to where they had been, but he couldn't do it. The blue distortions appeared around his hand, but nothing happened. There was no jump through space-time. He was dead weight - figuratively and almost literally.

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Oof. That worked a little too well. Victoria thought as her blast punched through the pillar, continued through Diana and on its merry way until it hit the edge of the arena. She was about to take cover herself, when half of Diana landed behind her with a wet thud. Later Vicky would loathe to admit it took her a full second of staring at the scene in bewilderment before she realized what happened and added another item on her list of lessons learned / things to do.

Once she did though, she reached down and snagged the quiver from Diana's corpse. It was time to start thinking of defeating the sword wielding technopath, and her armor famously didn't fit into that equation. She noticed the remaining trick arrows. The boomerang arrow was quite useless to her, but the fire arrow she could make use off, and one of the regular ones was sharp enough to get in the gaps of her armor, so that would have to do.

Still, despite having all that and despite her lanky build not being bad at all in hand to hand, Zari's sword still gave her a reach advantage and Victoria did not fancy those odds. So, she pinged her sensors, and spotted the blob of heat hiding on the outskirts that was Edward Arca. Looking at the Master Hand, a shit eating grin plastered itself on her face under her faceplate.

Focusing on the construct, she frowned at Zari damaging her weapon to be, but none the less it was still better than anything else her human self could likely bring to bear.

Speaking of though, having programmed the Framework to make herself appear human came to bite her back in the ass. Rather than easily connecting and hacking at supercomputer speeds, she had to use the suit's HUD, voice commands and eye tracking to do the hacking the human way - Considerably more slowly. That was when certain someone came back to mind.

With the generators in her hands cooling down still from the overcharged attack and Diana out of the picture, she reset her defenses to something more appropriate, hoping at least Leah was smart enough to figure out that the next set of boulders she hurled at her better have a pointy end. Brownie points would be awarded for fin or spin stabilization.

Well, as long as someone else makes the brownies. Mine would not be much of a reward. she sniffed. Raising her arms with the generators facing away, she turned around and headed towards Ed. "Ed? I know you're there. Look while I appreciate selecting pretty much the best strategy out of all of us, the sad part is neither of us will stand much of a chance against the technopath over yonder, she is... Well, a god in here. I'm thinking our only chance is to put her in a crossfire, so to speak. I'm trying to gain control of the Master hand but it's going slow. Would you happen to know of some backdoors to make that happen? Help me out here and I'll ditch the armor if we're the last two standing to make it fairer." she tried to sweeten the deal.

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Good! It appeared that Sabine was falling for the bait. She'd never guess that he was hiding away inside of Percy and sabotaging their chances of escape. It took everything in Dorian to stop himself from giggling at his clever prank. That is, until something had given him away. He didn't know what the tell was, but somehow Sabine now knew. Panic quickly set in as he felt the most in danger that he had ever been. And he'd done some very stupid things in the past. Sabine however struck a special sort of fear in him. One that had been instilled through familial trauma from his uncle's side. He internally flinched inside of Percy as Sabine reared back a punch and quickly knocked his lights out.

Dorian lost control, slipping out of Percy as he hovered above the fallen pair. He let out a long whistle before speaking. "What a right hook. Although-" Before he could continue, Percy began to unceremoniously relieve himself of his breakfast from this morning. He'd never had anyone do that before from his possessions. It made him worried that maybe Percy wasn't better from when he'd seen him last. It was clear he was out for the count in this, and as much as Dorian wanted to help him there was nothing he could do. So he raced over towards Danni, watching as he struggled with the wall and in attempt to help out he scooped his Astral arms underneath his and attempted to lift him up in the air. He struggled, using his underdeveloped arm muscles to lift Danni off the floor, but the weight was too much.

Frustrated, Dorian decided to try something he'd never done before. He went to push Danni, attempting to move his body into the Astral Plane with him so they could simply fly over the obstacle together. But as Dorian went to rush him, he simply phased straight through with some resistance towards his attempt. He floated up, looking at the obstacle as he tried hard to think. He felt absolutely useless at the moment as he stared down an obstacle that he figured would be no problem for Danni. It was then he noticed the hand holds, each covered up by vines laced with thorns against the wall. Finally! Dorian possessed the vines, moving them away from the handholds so that Danni could safely climb up the wall and meet him at the next obstacle.

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Leah’s rocky attack didn’t do a lot. It didn’t do anything noticeably impactful to the hand at fucking all. Leah was still on edge like crazy. There was a sting all over her skin. She was fucking hurting, and this bullshit just pissed her off more and more. Leah felt ready to scream- Not in pain again, but in rage. Irrational, blinding, rage. The only reason she didn’t is because the giant Fuck Off Mitt landed on her. There was a thunderous thud, but Leah… Didn’t feel a thing. The ground shook, and the Hand crumbled around her. She went through it, and Leah was left unscathed as digital blood showered all over her.

Either the Hand was secretly coded to be completely painless, Zari somehow made it that way, or Leah’s… Change did something to make her go from being built like a brick house to being built like a battleship. Or maybe it was the fact that the Hand just shredded itself open on her hair- She grew it out for this kind of thing. But regardless, Leah was in a rage. She grabbed the Hand’s weird, digital flesh between her fists and tried to tear it apart. Leah wanted to mangle it- Rip it into tiny fucking shreds and shatter the thing like brittle glass and-

Wait, it was still alive. It was squirming around her and managed to rip itself upwards and into the sky. Even as Leah had someone gotten taller, she still couldn’t just reach the stupid thing and throw it out of the sky, straight at Usagi’s scraggly little bitch ass face. Leah could feel a vein start to pop under her skin. ”I’m gonna fucking kill that fucking thing…”

And then, she yelled like she never yelled before. Fists bowled up, the very heavens might’ve heard Leah’s fury.

”GET THE FUCK BACK HERE!!!”

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Diana stared at Usagi as she turned her little cat body to taunt her about dying, she was more annoyed with herself than anything as Diana made her way towards the monitor. She didn't change back into her school uniform just in case after this little test was all over with and they were sent back in. Diana really wasnt looking forward to writing a 2000 word essay about how much of a loser was, which gave her some incentive to join in on the fun creating things to kill the others. Diana looked at the monitors noting everyone's lives still which she could use to count down each kill would be a few hundred words less. "This should be more fun." Diana said as she moved over towards the controls and monitor for the Framework.

Diana started to look at all of the things that she could bring into the Framework, Usagi brought in the Master Hand from the Smash Brothers games. Diana decided to keep with the Nintendo theme for now as she scrolled through and found Calamity Ganon, and pressed the button. However what she summoned into the Framework wasn't what she had summoned as a Korok appeared, Diana groaned loudly in annoyance as she summoned again who she actually wanted.

Diana smiled as she managed to summon Calamity Ganon this time the Master Hand ended up disappearing from sight however. She went and moved the target seeing where Victoria was and tried to fire off a shot only for her to miss and hit the Korok and destroyed it. The next thing that happened really made Diana annoyed as the Korok reappeared and multiplied. "Yahhaha! You found me!" As it yelled in front of Calamity Ganon's face Diana groaned slightly banging her head on the keyboard slightly.

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Madalyne listened to Andy, Mary-Sue and April as they all pointed out on everything that they could have done to try and work better as a team. She looked down at her hands for a moment, she really wasn't sure what had happened to her when Andy touched her and drained some of her lifeforce. Her attention quickly turned to Andy and nodded slightly, she didn't want to have that weird transformation happen to her again, she needed to talk to her mother about what had happened later today. "And i'm sorry for stabbing you, hopefully we can still work together and be friends." Madalyne said to Andy, she really did seem to be a nice kid and wouldn't mind working with her again Madalyne turned her attention to Lady Nimue again as she spoke.

Madalyne smiled as she quickly went over to hug her roommate she was really happy that their mentor had paired the two of them up for the next lesson today. She started to think about April's suggestion about making some sort of potion to help with the next phase of the lesson. Though potion brewing was something she learned back at home and with Professor Harkness when she was at the school potion brewing did take time and ingredients to make.

"Actually I have a bit of an easier idea." Madalyne said as she moved closer to her best friend and closed her eyes as she channeled some of her magic through and into April, she shook her head a few dark images of her as a demon flashed through her head as she tried to concentrate on what she wanted to do but it didn't happen. [color=7FFFD4'"Hold on I just need one more second."[/color] Madalyne said as she tried to channel her magic once more into April and she was somewhat successful this time as she opened her eyes. "I'll keep channeling throughout the fight, but you should have some more fine control over your water powers." Madalyne whispered to April giving her a smile.