Rebecca Raleigh
Rebecca had kind of lost track of what was happening, to be completely honest. She had just been getting used to fighting zombies when they upgraded to dinosaur. Or not, since Interceptor immediately made clear that that wasn't part of the test.So, like a reasonable person, she ran. It was their first day, after all, best to let the experienced heroes handle this. It was a few seconds after she made it out of the training room when she realized nobody was following her. Maybe she'd mishandled that, actually. Interceptor had probably wanted an orderly evacuation, or the others had used a special evacuation tunnel.
But when she peeked back into the room to see what she did wrong, the dinosaur was dead and everyone was going about their business. Or, mostly everyone. Ian was unconscious, which was concerning.
She ran to his side after... okay, she had no clue who that girl was. Had she been there the whole time? Regardless, she seemed to know what she was doing.
"What happened? Is he okay?"
Edited by PossiblyQuiteInsane on Dec 17th 2021 at 9:08:29 AM
Sue
Sue bounced off the wall, landing on the ground and rolling towards the carcass with a heavy flop. "Oofta..."
Amazingly, she got off with little more than a bruise, and even that was hidden under her thick fur. Even so, she wasn't in the mood to get to her feet, laying on the floor in a daze as she counted the pretty birdies circling overhead. She didn't care that only she could see the birdies, because a pretty birdy was a pretty birdy was a pretty birdywirdy...
...but the smell of fresh meat soon brought her to her senses. The birdies quickly vanished as she heard the sound of her fellow students munching on the beast's fresh corpse, her little snout sniffing away as the delicious stench of half-roasted meat wafted into the air. "Ohhhh, Sue's hungry...''"
Suddenly, she snapped too, looking up to see two of her classmates munching on their massive prey. "HEY, NO FAIR! SUE WANTS DIN-DIN!" She dove atop the carcass, tearing into its flank and ripping over whatever chunks of meat she could take. She wasn't picky, snarfing them down as she stuffed herself silly. "Mmmm! Finger-lickin' good!"
She tore off another strip, waving it at Theo and the others as thick green juices dripped down her mouth, staining her fur and spilling onto the floor below. "Hey, come on, everyone! Dig in! This is the good stuff!"
Lucy Livingston
That's right. Know my place.
Lucy glanced away from the heavily breathing face in her peripheral vision, refusing to give it the time of day. Her form tensed, and her teeth ground together, but she tried to keep her irritation from the others.
That wasn't what she meant.
I don't know that. She could already have a grudge on me. It's happened quicker before.
Stop being paranoid. I did only a little, it helped, and that's it. I can do more next time.
...
Good.
The face left the edge of her view, and she exhaled softly as she tried to stop a choke of emotion from welling up in her throat. Taking hold of her own courage, she slowly pulled her hood away from her head, revealing her messy hair which she promptly struggled to tidy with her fingers.
Screw it. It'll get messed up again anyway.
“Wh-Why do so many people here eat like that...?” she wondered quietly. It was almost starting to make her feel weird for not joining in. “...a-and why a dinosaur...?”
Edited by Enirboreh on Dec 18th 2021 at 3:55:05 PM
borkBea :> Find A New Sense Of Disgust For The Deserter
The military outfit girl got even more deadpanned (if such a thing was even possible) as Sue jumped in on the corpse devouring party.
"Just when I thought you couldn't disappoint me further..."
With a dry retch building in the back of her throat Bea simply turned away and started checking on the condition of her equipment.
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.Kirby
Wiping his mouth, Kirby walked back up to join the non-eaters. "Well, I suppose you just don't get to eat dinosaurs every day. It's like eating...caribou? Or some weird truffle that costs thousands of dollars. Me, I was going to have a hamburger for lunch....but I might settle for a salad now. As long as they don't decide to eat all of our enemies...though that might cut down on recidivism." He nodded at Lucy. "Good job out there. At least one of us was useful." Turning to Bea, he deadpanned, "See, when we fight evil pizza monsters this will actually become a viable tactic. It's all part of the Saint Academy training package."
He turned to Interceptor, both to see the veteran hero's reaction to the...post battle feast and to ask about their next step. "Now that combat and lunch are settled, what's next?"
Gala Muse
A wave of concern washed over Gala as she watched her classmates begin to eat the creature. What if there wasn't any left for her??
"Pardon me," she said to Interceptor, before shifting back into the swarm.
The rats (sans the ones which had unfortunately been stepped on earlier) surged towards the neck of the beast, now conveniently close to the ground. Locating the wound she had made with the shiv, the rats began to take their own bites out of the muscle beneath the tough outer flesh.
After only a few moments, though, the swarm swept back towards Interceptor, and Gala flickered back into humanoid form.
"That tasted bad, like chicken," Gala said, then turned to address Kirby. "Lunch isn't settled. We're still hungry."
Mikael
As he finished his monster leg, he knelt down, turning his axe into a knife, and began to hack off some of the remaining meat. He'd have skinned the thing properly, but Khulan had already dissolved most of it, so he settled for taking some more bits of meat. Rather than eating right away, however, this cut he held on to.
"Don't worry, Rats. Gonna make some jerky out of this." He held up the large chunk of meat he'd cut out. "Most people don't actually like raw meat, anyway. Well, most humans don't. Guess rats are the same."
Something else had caught his attention, however, and he now turned towards Bea, affixing her with an annoyed glance. "I don't know what branch of the military you came from, but we're not here to be good little soldiers. We're here to be heroes. Sometimes that means listening to your heart, not to your orders."
His piece said, Mikael remembered at last to revert to his human form. Still holding his piece of meat, he walked over to his discarded muscle shirt and slipped it back on.
What is so amusing about this? Why do you take lives? How can you forget?Kana
"Wooooo!" Kana fell to the ground with a loud thud. "That was really incredible! I can't believe we took down a dinosaur!!!"
She got back up and headed over to the dino carcass, ripping apart a chunk of meat and eating it without a care in the world.
"Great job guys! ...Yeesh, this has got some aftertaste! Maybe eating raw dino meat wasn't such a good idea..."
Martin Snow
Martin looked at the defeated beast and put a hand on it. Yes it had been necessary to end the life of the creature, at the time there was nothing to be done but fight or die. But ending the life of a living creature because it was convenient didn't sit well with him. Through seeing Mikeal and Sue go at it did give him an odd sort of comfort, through it also turned his stomach a bit.
"Actually, I might have strained something in my leg and fist," his power wasn't so great that punching something of that creatures size and durability wouldn't have some effect. "But I should be okay if needed. As for my decision..." he brought his good hand up to touch the burn scar on his face. "Protecting another person is never wrong, and given the exact same scenario I can't say I would make another decision. But I came here to become strong enough to take the hardest choices and still make a good ending."
Lucy Livingston
Lucy smiled shyly in response to Kirby's brief compliment, and nodded in return as she fiddled with her fingers and thumbs absentmindedly. Martin had been scarred, it looked like—was that from the battle just now? She felt guilty either way, and his optimism didn't exactly quell this either.
“P-Please don't... push yourself too hard...” she whispered somewhat bashfully at him. “N-Not saying you are, but... y-y'know. It hurts to see someone hurting...”
Says the girl who got shot because she was trying too hard to be heroic.
That was different.
I almost died.
But I'm me. It doesn't matter.
Something rumbled in her head, and she shook it slightly. It wasn't actually rumbling, but something was definitely changing around in her mind. It was so harsh and sudden a process most of the time that she could only compare it to some kind of tremor. It was disturbing to her, since it always felt like people should've been able to hear it even though they couldn't.
She was almost afraid to imagine the possibility that they could.
“Y-You look like you've been through a lot...” she mentioned while she still had attention on the conversation, flicking her eyes briefly over some of Martin's visible imperfections. “...n-not... not bad, I just mean... t-tough. I-I guess that makes sense...”
Because we both throw ourselves out there for others, and pay the price.
borkMartin Snow
Martin looked to Lucy for a moment as she spoke, and gave a small nod. "I'll keep that in mind," hurting others was never his goal, and given his own mindset he didn't dabble in things like greater or lesser goods. But he couldn't stop so instead he would just become strong enough to deal with the weight of things that pressed down on him.
Her seconds words seemed to carry a underlying meaning, as if saying 'like I have'. Through he could have just as easily been wrong. "Yeah, but at the end of the day someone was allowed to live, the burn is a fairly even trade," it had been reckless running into the fire, but in the end the path he created reaching the person allowed the fire fighters to save both of them.
"I'm kind of an idiot who ends up getting in over my head sometimes through, I want to become strong to make sure I can always help...but I kind of have a selfish wish as well," he leaned in and whispered. "I hope to make a friend who can tell me when I'm going overboard, or at least stop me and get me to think first."
Despite always being willing to help others friends had never been something he had felt blessed with. He knew a lot of people, but he had thrown his all to get to Saint's Academy, and having done so had forgone a lot of bonding moments with peers. He had no regrets, but he wouldn't deny feeling a bit lonely sometimes.
Lucy Livingston
“Y-You want to do right by others so bad that it's like a compulsion, right...?” Lucy found herself saying almost automatically, and even to her own surprise the tone of her voice audibly changed to become more emphatic and low. “Like when you see the news. You just go out and... fix it. Think about plans once you're there. If at... i-if at all...”
Her voice quietened again as she realised how suddenly she'd started speaking loudly, and her cheeks flushed scarlet as she seemed to regain her senses. For the moment, she shoved the Wraith back down and bound it deep within the back of her mind, consciously avoiding expressing herself so dangerously again.
It also had the side-effect of making her voice sound even more quiet, strained, and hollow than it did before.
“...I-I... s-sorry. I understand. I'm... s-sorta looking for that too? Mostly just wanna... figure out how to stick with my plans, y'know...? Not get... c-carried away...”
borkBea :> Banter
Bea closed her eyes for a moment at being insulted by the transforming demonic entity so she could process a reasonable response.
"It appears you and I have very different definitions of hero work. Perhaps though, if being a hero and following my heart truly involves throwing aside all regard and devouring the untested raw meat of a diseased-looking creature of unknown origin... I think I shall prefer to be a 'soldier' then."
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.Theo
While the other students had begun conversing, Theo was so high on adrenaline he began whooping and running around the room doing victory laps.
"LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" he yelled as he ran, pausing only to give out high-fives before stopping at where Sue and the others eating pieces of the dinosaur monster were and grabbing a piece himself, making a small flame in one hand and holding the piece he yanked free over it in his other hand to roast it a little more before biting into it, "Needs salt..." he muttered before turning his attention to Mikael and Sue.
"Ay, Muscles, Monkey Girl!" He said waving to both of them, finishing his piece of meat before continuing talking, "That was some impressive shit back there, with the zombies and now with this dino, y'all are the kinda people I'm glad got my back, y'know?"
Lee.
For a moment, Lee looked like he almost pouting...sulking before shrugging it off. It was fine, maybe he just needed one of those megaphone things as he idly nodded in agreement with Bea's comment.
"Guess their parents didn't tell them it's...not a good idea to eat, uh, uncooked...stuff? But they're not going green or anything, so it must not have been poisonous at least?"
The youth double-checked the batteries in his pockets, just in case and glanced around the room again, a little lost in thought.
"Wonder what's next?"
Edited by TheRealWren on Dec 20th 2021 at 9:07:20 PM
Hope you weren't expecting anything witty here. Maybe some day.Gala Muse
Lured by the thought of jerky, Gala drifted over to the argument between Bea and Mikael.
"As long as you aren't doing the same thing as everybody else, you should do what you want," Gala chimed in. She was a bit puzzled about the contents of the argument, but that, at least, she knew to be true. "It's boring when everybody does the same thing. Is that what soldiers do?"
Flicking her eyes back over to the hunk of meat in Mikael's hands, Gala tilted her head curiously and changed the subject abruptly. "When you make that into jerky, can I watch?"
"I wouldn't jump in if all I can accomplish is to need someone to bail my butt out of danger" And boy did I learn that lesson Sam commented "We already have a big order, which is to stop these kinda things and rescue people in danger, any other order ends up being secondary"
"Although we need that thing for investigation, so careful"
Pulling out a handkerchief from his pocket, he made a piece of ice and wrapped it up. He walked up to Martin and extended it.
"You might need that"
Edited by Blueace on Dec 20th 2021 at 6:04:03 AM
Wake me up at your own risk.Martin Snow
Martin gave Sam a grateful smile and wrapped his hands in the cold towel, giving a small sigh of relief. "Thank you, that feels quite a bit better," he had never been one to complain too much about injury but he also wasn't utterly immune to pain.
He gave Lucy a thoughtful look but chose to add nothing but a small nod to show that he understood exactly what she was talking about. This probably wasn't the kind of thing that people discussed in front of others. "Well if you ever want to talk more about it, you'll know where to find me."
His eyes ran over to the discord between his classmates, putting his hands up and moving between the two parties. "Trading insults and barbs isn't going to help anyone. We all have our differences and sometimes we won't always agree on what needs to be done. But starting a fight only helps the people who want to hurt us."
Lucy Livingston
“Th-Thank you...” Lucy said somewhat breathlessly in response to Martin, but he'd already split off to talk to the others. She was appreciative of the fact that he didn't pry into what she'd said, at least not here and now. Though she was curious whether he'd consult her about it later.
He's nice.
I should be careful.
As always.
She shook her head, quietly looking around for anyone in need. Much like Martin had done, except she didn't announce herself so explicitness. Instead she moved to approach who she soon recognized as Liam still lying prone, with another girl along with Rebecca crouched over him checking him over. Had he been unconscious this long? She hoped he was okay.
“D-Do you need any help...?” she asked the girl; Libitina as she remembered her name. “It's... it's Lib, right? I-I'm Lucy. Is he... i-is he doing okay...?”
Edited by Enirboreh on Dec 20th 2021 at 10:12:54 AM
borkTraining Room
"Hey, same here, fire friend guy! Seriously, that's some hot stuff! Like, both hot and hot cuz setting things on fire is cool 'cept it's not cool cuz fire ain't cool but you're cool and—"
Before Sue could start rambling on, Interceptor cleared his throat, calling the class to attention. "What's next is learning some self-control. If I've learned anything from the last hour, it's that half of you don't know how to follow orders. There are times where you should follow your gut, or your heart in more sentimental terms. But it's important to learn the proper balance. Something most of you have yet to learn."
He checked Liam's pulse before hoisting him on his shoulder with ease, turning towards the door. "As for where this monster came from, that's not something I can answer. Monsters are a somewhat common occurrence, but I can't say any of them have appeared out of the blue. Not like this. Security will take care of the rest, but I'd like to get all of you safely to your dorms before more pop out of the woodwork."
Dorms
After a short walk, the class was home. It was now that they knew they weren't in Kansas anymore, if they hadn't already. The living room on the first floor was like something out of a sitcom. Spacious and pristine, scores of comfy chairs and sofas, and an immaculate and well-polished wooden floor with a spiffy bear rug. A large wide-screen TV was neatly placed at the end, together with a smorgasbord of DV Ds and the newest consoles. They could see a well-stocked kitchen around the corner, and it was every bit as swanky as the rest. None of this matched the one percent or came anywhere close, but it was a sight better than most of them had seen. Even the stairway leading to their rooms was a small marvel.
He dropped Liam on the couch, gently laying him down without risking a bruise. "He'll be fine, give or take a minute or two. But this is where you'll be staying in the short term." He pulled out his database, flipping through a digital copy of the syllabus with mechanical precision. "And here on the last page are your roommates..."
[Fern Lamb/Victor Vaughn]
[Rebecca Raleigh/Samuel Aster Everett]
[Kirby Thompson/Lee Sivril]
[Clio Vargas/Liam Eckhart]
[Sue Wukong/Beatrice Bianca]
[Martin Snow/Lucy Melanie Livingston]
[Libitina Reap/Yeruslan Khulan]
[Galatea "Gala" Muse/Theodore "Theo Sampson]
[Mikael Freisch/Kana Yoshiro]
[Lucien Bright]
"...if you have any problems with this arraignment, you're welcome to dispute them, but I'd suggest giving them a try before making special requests. Whoever you're roomed with, it won't hurt you to give it a shot. "
Edited by kkhohoho on Dec 20th 2021 at 9:05:40 AM
Lucy Livingston — Training...
“U-Um... th-thanks. You were pretty cool too...~” Lucy managed in response to Libitina, breathing a sigh of relief as Interceptor... intercepted and lifted Liam up himself. “Th-That whole thing was pretty insane...”
She felt a little guilt well up in her at Interceptor's reprimand, but he did have a point. Even if she obeyed the order to flee at first, she'd stuck around and attacked the monster anyhow once she was a safe distance away. It didn't feel particularly obedient or even heroic to her.
She'd figure it out later. Wraith was still bound, but it'd undoubtedly have its own complaints it'd be more than willing to snarl at her later on.
“...l-let's go...” she swallowed somewhat dejectedly, feeling downtrodden at essentially being told off by her idol.
...to Dorms
The dormitories were most certainly not what she'd been expecting. It was expansive, smart to look at and comfy in its atmosphere, and Lucy couldn't help but smile slightly in a pleased fashion as she took all of it in. Briefly flicking her eyes down to Liam again as he was placed on a couch, she ambled over towards the registry that supposedly listed the rooming arrangements.
She read down the list slowly, partly due to having remember names as she went. If there was ever a time to commit them to her mind, it'd be now while they were right in front of her. Once she got to her name, however, she froze up once she read who she was roomed with—her face rapidly turning a burning scarlet as she tugged her hood up over her head in order to hide it.
WHAT THE FU—
It's okay! It's fine! Just ask to change it!
GOD DAMN IT I'M ROOMING WITH A BOY
Just talk to him!
I JUST DID THAT'LL MAKE THINGS WORSE
It's better than Mikael at least!
...
...
Fair.
“...meep...”
borkVictor
"Ooooh! This place is nice!" Victor eagerly bounded into the dormitory, doing a little twirl. "Yep. I can get used to this."
It took him only a brief moment to read through the list. Fern, huh? Don't know her, don't have an opinion on her. But hey, it'll be interesting! Probably. With that done, he let his gaze wander...
...and noticed Lucy turning the color of a tomato.
Curious, he approached her, tilting his head. "Is something wrong? Is it your roommate? Do you want to trade? I certainly won't mind."
"Look inside yourself and to the stars; there, you will find your answers."

Bea :> Opine
"I will be honest; with a better dedication to strategy and some refinement, the powerhouses of this class will end up being quite capable combatants for presumably whatever missions we are dispatched on."
Bea tried to not look at the feasting going on but she presumed those indulging in the flesh of an unknown and possibly diseased monstrosity had the iron constitutions to take it. Instead she looked at the others who like her had retreated to a safe distance.
"Naturally, there will be times where a less overwhelming show of force is required. Knowing your place in the team strategy is good regardless."
It's clearly a case of backroom political albumizing.