[IC] The Order: Holy Warriors

[Grey]

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[RainDash]

Castiel saw the shaking that Claude did. Even a trainee from fifty feet away could. When he was done, she all but shoved him out of the way. "That was aggravatingly long. I hope you remember your answers, because I'm going to say them out loud to save on time." she didn't have time to play this dumb game. She needed to figure out how to stop the stupid tremors and fight Blisters, not see junk that had been laying around pinned to a bunch of trees. She needed to be stronger, strong enough to get rid of the darned white soul and fight on her own.

Castiel took a breath, closing her eyes and tapping the innumerable power she held deep down within. She opened her eye and started rattling off the items, "a ring of keys -which you should return to the janitor judging by the sheer volume of the keys-, a doll, and a piece of blue ribbon I which when we'll done I'll borrow." with a sigh she let go, feeling as though she had been forced to run a short but extremely tiring race. She kept breathing evenly, trying to make the shaking in her hands go away by sheer force of will. "By the way, teach, you should know I'm the most powerful here. I don't need to worry about power like Claude or John. I just need to learn how control my own circumstances."

[Shurikai]

It wasn't hard to see that Claude was struggling. His shuddering was clear to see from where he stood. Maybe he should sit out the next exercise? No, he might find it offensive.

Cayenne listened quietly to Castiel, his arms folded. When she finished, he shook his head slowly.
"Very good, all of you." He ignored Castiel's comment. "You found all my items, but there is one more out there. It is warded to be invisible, and since you are the most powerful here, Castiel, you can go first." With a nod toward the trees he knew none of them would be able to find the final item. Not until they gave up and looked down. Cayenne smiled, wondering if any of them would give up and see the rock sitting right on the stone wall in front of them.

[RainDash]

Castiel narrowed her eyes. "Old geezer, I'm not playing child's games. I won't say anything because that smug look on your face says that you're lying. Obviously it's not shrouded at all, because I've never heard of Priests even having that power at all. I don't have time to waste on stupid exercises like this." with that, Castiel stomped back to the door. "Maybe Claude and Johnny boy can solve it. Maybe they won't. I don't care. If you need me, I'll be actually using skills that I've learned on my own."

Castiel was acting like a child, throwing around insults and cruel words carelessly. If she dawdled on learning these skills, there would be nothing of her left. Bit by bit, day by day, she was being swallowed by the cursed soul she was born with and there would be nothing but a warm hugging and cookie baking sissy in her place. Besides, she was still a little tired from her show of force. If she expended too much all at once… then those symptoms would show up again. She slumped against the wall, hands shaking and panting. She hated this body and her stupid soul. With nothing else to do but calm down, she began to hum some old waltz she'd heard when she was younger. What am I doing here? I could have gone on by myself. Why bother training on things I already knew?

[Shurikai]

That was that. This was a simple test of perception. If Castiel couldn't handle it... it wouldn't really matter. She was right about one thing, shrouding wasn't an ability that priests had. Warding wasn't either. It was a piece of paper with scribbling on it that you slapped on an inanimate object and it disappeared. It is a particularly weak ward and can easily be seen through, with the right kind of nudge. Any tweak to in the eyes focus would bring it into sight. A shiny stone like the one he had placed would be easy to see.
"Take a moment to rest while I speak to your team mate." Cayenne told his remaining students and walked after Castiel.

After a few minutes of searching, he found her leaning against the wall, looking just as bad as Claude had.
"Castiel, I have seen strong and skilled priests get themselves killed because they couldn't work in a team. I would hate to see that become of you. You are strong, but your skills need to be refined. I know you think you are beyond your team, but you need each other. When the time comes, you will understand why. There is strength in saving lives, too. You simply have to choose to want it." Cayenne turned to walk away, "If you decide to continue working with us, we will be meeting in the training yard with the others tomorrow morning."
Quietly, he walked back to his waiting trainees.
"Claude, do you feel up to giving it another go?"

[Grey]

Claude's eye twitched, and this time not out of exertion. Castiel was really getting on his nerves, damn it. Though, he had to agree. His time was absolutely pathetic. Having someone point it out was what bothered him the most. So be it, he was the slowest, but at least he could take solace in the fact that Castiel seemed to have been equally taxed, despite her faster speed. 'Insubordinate trash,' he thought as Castiel decided to 'rage quit' as it were and storm off, with their group's instructor following after. 'What a waste,' Claude thought, sighing in frustration, [/i]'he should just go deal with people who actually give a damn about this.'[/i] Though, he was given time to recuperate, and so he would. But rest wasn't the only thing he'd go for; he'd figure out the trick behind their instructor's plan. Shrouding wasn't a thing, but Claude would operate under the assumption that the guy had a soul power that could replicate that effect, anyway. It took but a moment to formulate a suitable plan of action. Now to redeem himself...

'Ah, there he is,' Claude though upon their instructor's return. Before Claude could volunteer himself, the man had decided to ask if he was willing. "Heh," Claude grinned, "After last time's disappointment? Hell yeah. I'm not going down that easily." He stood back up and took his place in the center. However, he only focused his sight for a few moments, just enough to sufficiently scan the area. Not as intensive a process as before, where he had to prolong the use to find three objects. That over and done with, Claude activated his own soul power.

The smelly 'tang' of ozone filled the air. Surrounding Claude, several oxygen particles separated from each other before combining again to create the chemical with the smell in question. By sensing for patches within his range that weren't full of ozone, he could locate an object invisible to himself, and then search that area for whatever object their boss had hidden. It sort of defeated the whole 'spirit' of it, but technically he couldn't be scolded for it - Cayenne never said you couldn't find it the way Claude had. Plus there was that whole thing about 'outside the box thinking'. Once he had 'felt' the area, he directed his vision to it, revealing the item in question.

"Found it," Claude said simply before handing back his paper, with the answer written on it, "Now if you don't mind, I'm going to take a rest." Immediately after that, he allowed himself to fall on his butt before laying his body out. He removed the candy bag from earlier and began consuming some in order to build up energy.

[RainDash]

Castiel laid down on the ground next to her as Cayenne lectured her about lone Priests dying alone and how strong she was. Castiel curled up into herself even tighter than before and muttered a few suggestions about where he could stick a cactus. But she did want this, she did want to become a Priest. She just expected... she just expected something other than what actually happened than the sad series of events that led her here. Discovering that in order to move she'd killed some kind of angel, and that all her social experience ended up meaning nothing because she'd be lied to or taken advantage of anyway because of her dumb compulsive kindness.

She was snapped out her angry and bitter thoughts by the sound of a wrapper being opened. She guessed Claude was done with the exercise, probably eating the dumb candy she'd bought weeks earlier. Maybe Cayenne was right, maybe she should try to work in the group. She didn't want to admit it, but she didn't want to look like the weakest. She didn't want to mention her soul alignment or life experience and complicate matters by having them pity her. She sighed and hit her head against her knees. She needed to be better with people if she stood a chance at doing anything worthwhile. So she stood and walked over to Claude.

How was she going to phrase this to not come out rude? "It was a thinly veiled rock. It was sitting on the wall in front of us." she tried to explain, not particularly caring about John at the moment. It felt like pulling teeth, but she tried to retain a civil tone. "Claude, right?" she asked as she stood next to him. "I'm not good with people. I keep trying but I guess I gave up at some point. I think what I'm trying to say..." she tried to think up words that the teacher wouldn't scold her for using, "is that I'm trying to be better for my own reasons, and so are you. Why not work together to get somewhere other than paddling in a circle?" was she really going to kiss up to him? This was pointless, he'd probably be dead sooner or later, and she'd be alone again. "I'll try not to throw any more hissy fits, but I don't make any promises on that."

[smarty0114]

John snapped back to reality when Cayenne told them they could rest. He watched as he talked with Castiel and as Claude struggled to find the shiny stone that John had noticed earlier. It had a strange look to it as though it was in between solid and transparent. He eventually saw Claude write it down and he did the same. He stayed back from the rest, not particularly interested in joining them. It seemed as if Claude was a weak ass Priest in training and Castiel was terribly annoying and snappy. not his favorite people. Instead he used his telekinesis to lift a small pebble and fly it through the air, reminiscent of his days as a toddler when he was playing with airplanes.

[smarty0114]

(Ignore)

[Grey]

"Huh. Not bad," Claude remarked to himself upon consumption of roughly 1/16 of the amount of Castiel's week old candy, "Seems a bit... Off though. Still, doesn't quite subtract from the taste." He was especially a fan of the green apple and grape flavoured candies, but he had opted for avoiding the orange and lemon flavoured ones. Fortunately, Castiel hadn't loaded it with those like Claude would figure she would've, had she known his flavouring preferences. Speaking of the Devil, there the bluenette was, walking towards him it seemed. Claude's eyes narrowed. 'What does she want now?' he thought, preparing for the worst.

Surprisingly enough, Castiel seemed rather civil. Or at least, 20x more civil than before. Though Claude didn't show it, he was actually somewhat pleasantly surprised. She didn't arrive to go insult him, insult anyone else, or otherwise make some sort of offense, just a declaration of shared experience, and something that actually, genuinely surprised the young man. She made an admission of weakness and what seemed to be an offer of 'training partnership'. Or at the very least, an offer to play nice, complete with promise to not act like she had just woken on the wrong side of the bed for the 80th night in a row.

"Alright," Claude answered simply, "I'm game."

[RainDash]

"And what about you Johnny boy? You wanna work together to get through this training. I promise that if you don't step on my toes, I won't break your arm." Castiel said, talking to the kid with the pebble which he was presumably floating through the air. "But what I wouldn't give for a huge job or something to do while we're training. Looking at things the teacher took from the ground isn't terribly exciting."

She sighed, and flopped down in the ground, laying down to stare at the sky. She hated lying down, but if she stood any longer her feet would ache. It was weird, what she wanted always ended in pain. It didn't ever matter what she wanted, be it to train faster, remove the stupid soul, or even just to stand around it always was painful. It was a dumb trade off. "Are we done now teach? I'm getting bored sitting around these lazy idiots. Besides, if we're gonna work together, we'd better get used to how to fight. I doubt these two know how to do much of anything important."

[smarty0114]

John looked at Castiel inquisitively. Funny how she's been the one to offer the hand of friendship each time. "I'm in," he said. He smirked when Castiel made the snarky comment about their abilities. "Castiel, you'll be lucky to make it out of a match with only a few bruises when you're facing me," John said arrogantly.

[Shurikai]

"Yes, you are free for the rest of the day. Make sure you are in the training yard early tomorrow morning" Cayenne said dismissing his students, he had more important things to do than listen to them bicker. With a nod to the three of them he walked back into the building.
If they actually started to work together it would be a miracle. For Castiel, anyway.

[RainDash]

"Pfft. When I fight, I don't even have to do anything. You guys will end up defeating yourselves. It might take a while, with your strength, but underestimating me will be the last mistake you ever make." Castiel noticed their teacher's exit, carefully watching him. When he was gone, she stood up again. "You guys wanna do a real job? I swiped one from the board earlier, and even clowns like you could do this. It's not like we're going to be sitting around here forever anyway, so let's go."

She was holding a small sticky note, with all the details for the mission smushed together in tiny but immaculate writing. It was an F-ranked mission. Easy, with very little rewards. Normal students would take these for a little extra money, and new recruits could only do these. Castiel and the others at this point weren't approved to do missions yet, but Castiel didn't care. They were going to do this mission, like it or not. "Who's not a scaredy cat?"

[Grey]

"Wow. You must really disrespect us," Claude said bluntly, sitting himself up on the ground, expression wry, "Even a baby could do it... Which I guess makes sense for you, but definitely not for us." Well, he wasn't completely wrong at the very least, though he didn't know that fact just yet. "So count me in, obviously," he added, crossing his arms and leaning his back against a tree.

[RainDash]

"Good. So knight in shining armor's in," Castiel said, "what about you rock kid? You wanna get something done on your first day?" her smile betrayed nothing. It was an F-ranked mission, but there was still a great chance of them dying. After all, there had always been a great chance since they were mostly untrained. She wouldn't mention that though, they might accuse her of trying to get them all killed. "Come on, you know you want to." she said, in a very singsong voice. "Thirty bucks split three ways isn't much, but it'll buy some snack food."